I used to be a full time dev / R&D engineer. Now I basically do the same thing on YouTube (youtube.com/stuffmadehere). The difference now is my R&D-ing is directed at early stage prototypes that I think are interesting / instructive, rather than what is best for an actual business, useful, or profitable.

Youtube is interesting because theres a constant source of numeric feedback on how you are doing (views / subscribers / watch time). Seeing these numbers change based on what you do can be incredibly addicting and it's very easy to accidentally connect your personal happiness to those numbers. This is great if they are going up, but if they aren't.... yeah. It's also easy to get into a situation where you lean into "what works" over and over until you find yourself doing stuff that you don't enjoy.

My advice would be to find a way to keep the numbers at arms length and focus on doing stuff that you enjoy. You definitely need the feedback of stats / comments / etc to get better, but you don't wan to check it 10 times a day. Personally when I launch a video I will check a few times to ensure I didn't screw up anything major, see if there is any useful feedback in comments, then I will check maybe the stats every week or two.

Find a niche. People love free content. It wasn't that hard.

I was making computer security videos for people, real basics for programming, networking, web interactions, number bases, bit math - stuff that you need to learn as a base to get into hacking. Grew my channel pretty quickly to 1k subscribers just by sharing them to reddit. I deleted it because I got annoyed that I was making content for YT for free (the videos are still archived on Odysee). It really didn't seem that difficult to grow though when you're giving it away.

For pure dev things, cover different algorithms or data structures. Mobile, gaming, and web will have large audiences but already some established channels.

Other tips -

- Get a good mic, mic stand, shock mount.

- Downsize your screen to 720p when you record so it is large enough for the average laptop screen to read. It is absolutely ridiculous when someone is recording a tutorial on a 4k monitor and the text is microscopic.

- I was less concerned about video but repurposing a DSLR as a webcam is a good move. Pay attention to lighting and your background. Some people like full bright lights, color LEDs are a good vibe too.

- Practice speaking. Slow down.

- Learn to edit so you don't worry about redoing your whole video in a single take. I didn't like editing so I would redo 20 minute videos a few times until I got it right.

Don't let Youtube be the golden copy of your video. They can, and often do, kill your account at any time without notice or explanation and you will have no recourse. Keep the golden copy of all your video someplace reliable like S3 and in a format where you can out watermarks and channel names if needed.

Have a separate account for Youtube then your primary e-mail in case they decide to shut down your entire account your not completely cut off.

Try to have a way to communicate with your viewers outside of Youtube. If the algorithm does kill your channel then often times the only way to get it restored is via social media outrage, and you need a way to ask your followers to be outraged. Fund raise via patreon, have a reddit or discord community, release your videos early on a different platform, etc.

Don't be afraid to refresh old content periodically - everything old is new again.

- Good audio is more important than good video. People can listen to good audio and forgive bad video, but bad audio and people will stop watching.

- It takes time/audience to get traction. I started with a bunch of different topics and this was a waste of time. Having a focus for the channel helps.

- It takes a ton of time. I enjoy the process but don't underestimate the time commitment.

- Don't do it for subs or money, do it if you genuinely enjoy it.

(startups and AI topics https://www.youtube.com/HalfIdeas )

I'm not a YouTuber, but I found Theo Browne's "How The YouTube Algorithm ACTUALLY Works"[0] to be pretty intriguing.

I watched it a few months ago and just re-skimmed the transript, so I'm not sure if I'm remembering it perfectly, but here's what I took away from it:

- YouTube's algorithm recommends videos based on audience viewing patterns.

- The algorithm doesn't care what the video is about, it only cares about who is clicking on it and watching it.

- Click-through rate and watch time are the most important metrics, they're how the algorithm determines who to recommend your video to, and whether to recommend your video to a wider audience.

- It first shows your video to a small group and if it's well-received, expands to a wider audience with similar viewing habits.

- It repeats this process until it finds the falling-off point, where the click-through rate and watch time drop off.

- Figure out who your niche audience is and make videos that they're likely to click on and watch.

- You're going to need to create enough videos in order for the algorithm to figure out where your audience is, and then you're going to want to make more videos for that audience.

- The average clickthrough rate you see in your analytics is not the whole story. You might have a 20% clickthrough in your target niche, but if the algorithm starts recommending your videos to a wider audience, your click-through rate is going to start to drop. That doesn't mean your video is not doing well, it could actually be doing well enough with your niche that the algorithm is trying to show it to more people outside of your niche.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58jv8WL6H9I

Relatable "story" that matters. I believe that most people watch youtube because they want a perfect mix of entertainment and education. The audience wants to feel like their life will be transformed and improved (even tiny bit) if they watch your video. And they need to feel like they can relate to you somehow, like you're showing them the "right" way.

I try to follow this pattern in order to make the viewer relate to my videos (and sometimes I fail miserable because it's not easy):

1. I have "X" problem

2. I have this desire to become/learn/do "Y"

3. But I have an obstacle "Z"

4. If I don’t overcome the obstacle, it’s going to be really bad (stakes are high)

Anyways, here's a video where you see how I tried to implement this pattern:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIFxhd-mQFo&t=86s

(also, I didn't invent this pattern, instead I was lucky enough to run into one of Leon Hendrix's videos where he talks about it)

Try to stick to a schedule. That's something I've personally struggled with a lot, and it's something that the more successful channels I follow have usually done better with. People like to know when new uploads will be posted, and YouTube likes to push videos that people check out quickly after their initial airing.

Because of that, it's probably best not to try and post daily (or multiple times a day) unless you can truly handle it. There's definitely a path to quicker growth if you have a new video going up day in and day out, but that's also often a recipe for burnout in the long run, and the breaks you take to avoid/fix said burnout will be far more damaging than posting once or twice a week would.

Think carefully about the niche you choose to focus on. It should ideally be both something you can get a decent amount of regular content posted about, and something you won't get bored of/burnt out on too quickly. Nothing on YouTube is more difficult than changing your audience when your channel is already established, and I've seen a lot of people's channels crash and burn because of it.

Don't go overboard on shorts unless you want to become a short focused channel. The people who watch those often don't have much patience for longer videos, and probably won't watch your normal content as a result. Focusing too much on these is a good way to get a ton of subs that don't actually care about your work, and to make YouTube think your audience isn't interested in what you're posting.

That's my advice anywhere. As for what my own journey was like?

Honestly, a bit of a mess. On the one hand, my channel has about 33K subscribers right now, and I've had a fair few videos hit the 100K or even 1 million views mark.

On the other hand, I feel I killed a lot of my momentum at various points by not being able to stick to a regular schedule (due to burnout, job and real life needs, etc), and my attempts to try and diversify my content generally haven't done all that well, likely in large part due to focusing too much on a topic where my long term interest was limited.

Say something original and different.

I will put down some YouTube channels I like. See how different they are:

https://www.youtube.com/@BlowFan https://www.youtube.com/@CBaggers https://www.youtube.com/@Frankslaboratory https://www.youtube.com/@QuantPy https://www.youtube.com/@SuperDeclarative https://www.youtube.com/@MollyRocket https://www.youtube.com/@Hyperplexed

What you want to avoid at all costs is a channel which does everything (unless you are a news channel and want to put your own spin on that).

Make a bunch of shitty videos. Learn to get feedback. Look for truth in any criticism. Don’t take harsh feedback too personally. Learn what you can from people who have done it. For example:

https://youtu.be/3A8kawxMOcQ

I don’t know if I qualify for this, I’m a dev in the day job but my channel is non-tech - after years of tech-only side projects I wanted to do something different. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

* you have a lot of great advice about audio on the comments here - and they’re right, decent audio is a must. I use a DJI wireless lav for most stuff, but also have a Rode NT-USB for tabletop stuff and their shotgun mic on-camera for sync audio and quick pieces to camera when out and about. I usually record main audio into audacity via a behringer audio interface.

* get a good editing program, and get good (which means efficient) at using it. You’ll spend a lot of time in it. Personally I use the studio version of davinci resolve, other opinions are available.

* it can be feast and famine. I started my channel in Jan this year, and hit 1000 subs / 4000 hours at Easter. Monetised a couple days later. I’ve earned about twenty-five pounds since then - it’s gone quiet, but it’ll pick up again.

* don’t pay too much attention (or really, any) to the VidIQs and Channel Makers of this world - they just want to sell you snake oil (but their videos are often entertaining and you can learn stuff from what they do - just not so much what they say).

* don’t bother with VidIQ or tube buddy or all that other stuff - spend the money on storyblocks, a better camera, lights, audio gear instead.

* decent lights are worth their weight in gold. Aputure are great, but expensive. Smallrig do very similar kit at half the price.

* probably more specific to me, but filming long-take 4K in a hot kitchen with all the equipment going will challenge even the best heat-management system in your camera

Also FWIW I don’t do shorts any more. I experimented with them and the dopamine hit is great, but I’m a long-form guy. Shorts just skewed my analytics and brought in low-quality subscribers…

Decide if you want to try to generate revenue at some point, or if you are just doing it for the fun or passion of it.

If the former, you'll need to play the YouTube games, invest time in editing, improving technique, studying analytics, sticking to a schedule.

If the latter, post videos, have fun, hack at it... but don't expect more than 100 views on a video.

It can be fun either way, it really depends on your outlook. Cracking into a YouTube career is difficult, and soaks up so much time you'll find yourself wondering what happened to all the actual dev work you wanted to highlight in your content! Most of us who have had success learned a lot of tricks, but also have had a TON of luck.

Besides already being very wealthy, there's no guarantee you can get views or turn things into a full time gig. I spent two years saving up as much as I could consulting before I went into content creation full-time.

Understand how recommender engines work.

Make life easy on the recommender engine. Pick one topic and stick to it (that way the recommender engine is more confident about what is in the video and who to pitch it to). Use all fields available to explain the recommender engine the niche you want to carve out.

The recommender engine will pitch your video when it is in its best interest to do so. So you have to work with it to get it what it wants.

I upload things occasionally to my personal YT channel... if there's one thing I could pass on, is to stay the hell away from copyrighted stuff. (Music, visuals, etc)

I don't care if you paid someone for a license (and neither do the YouTube robots), 10 years down the line it could turn out they weren't actually the license holders, or they sold the rights to someone else who didn't know about your earlier agreements... when it comes to YouTube, they shoot first and ask questions "maybe" (assuming you get big and can "harass" them on twitter).

I saw both Hank Green and John Gruber give talks at XOXO about how they got started. Both were excellent, and worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPtopvsxmZY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKFStaFsZs

Hank talked about how the best time to start was 15 years ago, but the second-best time is today.

John talked about how when he started covering Apple, he worried that the market was already saturated.

I have a channel with 800 subs and I get between a few hundred and a couple of thousand views on the videos, which are about functional programming and category theory. I don't really optimize for views or subscribers though. My reason for making these videos is primarily for the enjoyment of immersing myself in a topic deeply for weeks, then telling a story about it every time I walk my dog until I get to the point I think it will be worth making a video.

It doesn't hurt your career, often someone asks me something in an interview and as well as answering I can point to an hour long in depth video about it. It helps to get your name out in a programming community.

It also lead to being invited to speak at local meetups and then international conferences.

I would say don't try to succeed in a vacuum. If you're already part of a community make sure to use them to get the word out about your content and help you improve it. Do the same for others. Discord communities are great for this.

Finally be aware that to get an audience you can pick a niche where there are less people interested in the thing but more likely to watch your video because there is so little content for them. If, on the other hand, you want to do big numbers, you need to cover mainstream topics. An example would be building something with the latest web framework. Now the potential audience is much bigger but you are competing with established, high quality creators.

https://www.youtube.com/c/functionaljustin

I've been at it for many years now, my channel @TheRoadChoseMe now has 60k subscribers, and gets pretty solid views.

I think the most important thing I've learned is to make videos that people want to watch. (I know that sounds basic, but I think it's the at the core) The more people watch it, the more YouTube promotes it, and the more people watch it. When that happens, YouTube will even give you a little notice that says they're showing it to more people because more people are watching it. When that happens I pickup tons of subscribers and tons more views than normal (and therefore more money)

Even when I have a post about my video hit the front page of reddit, the number of "external views" pales in comparison to YouTube recommended... so it doesn't matter how hard you promote it, the best thing you can do is make videos that people want to watch, and keep watching. YouTube will promote those videos for you. (See @StuffMadeHere for what happens and how quickly it happens when you make great videos - his channel got where it is now very, very quickly)

How do you do that? I think the best way is trial and error. Make many different types of video with different styles and approaches, and see what works. See what you enjoy, see what you are good at, and learn from that.

Also remember that YouTube is the "more content game". Sooner or later (I bet sooner) you'll run out of ideas and things to film. So start thinking about it now, you need to get in the "always create content" mindset.

I haven't built a channel with the goals most people have, but I have viewed a ton of YT content.

As others have said, spoken audio is a big deal. Or more accurately, giving viewers the abilty to hear spoken audio well is a big deal. That can mean not having constant background noise or music, but it can also mean intentionally speaking more slowly and articulately (as one does when practicing for stage theater). The way you speak really matters. Oddly, I have observed that some of the most prolific and informative presenters are also people with some particularly weak articulation skills... one might think they were slightly inebriated, but it's just the way they talk. You'll hear words like "butns", instead of "buttons", for example.

There is no user-end fix for the above. If the audio isn't clear and understandable, and the speech is important, then the rest of the content is irrelevant.

The content in general should be enough but no more than necessary. So many videos have a title that suggest they will tell you X, but the video spends 80% of the time talking about why you might be wanting to know X before _maybe_ telling you X. Don't f with people's time. If you have a solid point to make, make it early and then indicate that you will expand on the idea or reasoning after. Of course, the monetization scheme of YT encourages viewer time, so one might be inclined to draw out a video length. But be assured, after one or two time waster videos, viewers will never return.

If showing code, use LIGHT MODE, not dark mode. Dark mode text/code is practically invisible to people in a bright environment, which includes some rooms and certainly outdoors. Many people, myself included, will watch informative YT content while eating outside as a break from work. If the content is invisible due to the high ambient light, then obviously we will move on. And for the cave dwellers (which I am also at times), they can turn their screen brightness down. The non-vampires have a maximum brightness limit which cannot compete with the sun.

Lastly, don't fuss too much about the rest. Just do what you like, and do it occasionally or regularly for a long time. It seems to take weeks to years to "suddenly" become popular. Most overnight sensations were working for years before their subscriber curve went hockey-stick.

I’ve grown my channel to around 35,000 subs now - link is in my profile.

As someone else has pointed out - decide if you’re doing it for revenue or for fun. This will determine how happy you are going to be.

To be successful you need to find a niche. And then stick to it. This can be very difficult if your goal is to have fun AND make revenue.

Typically, YouTube will show your videos to your subscribers first and based on their reaction will show it to more people - or just kill it.

This means that you have to stick to a very tight niche - the one that resonates with your subscribers.

If you can pull it off, then having people watch your videos because of “you” rather than the content you post can be a winning formula. This frees you up slightly on the niche side of things. But you will need to have an amazingly entertaining personality to make this work.

I write a bit about my frustrations with being stuck in a niche here: https://atomic14.com/2023/03/06/the-curse-of-youtube.html

Make sure every one of your videos starts with "What's up YouTube" and also includes such phrases as "don't forget to like and subscribe" and "check out my Patreon".

(/s)

On a more serious note, my feeling is that cutting out "fluff" content like that is something I'd really appreciate.

I started mine[1] in earnest in the last few months; it's a mixture of programming and let's plays. I'd say don't overthink it; just start recording and uploading. You'll always find things to improve in subsequent videos and it's a really important part of finding your own voice on video platforms.

Try to make a recording and uploading schedule, don't make too many videos public at once and use the schedule function to spread out when your new videos appear in subscribers' feeds, because people are quick to unsubscribe if they think they see "too much of you" in their subscriptions feed.

[1]: https://youtube.com/@LGUG2Z

I recently posted my first programming video after getting inspired by other fellow programmer youtubers

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PU75M0QkwTQ

Have a purpose. Have an intended audience to fulfill that purpose. Cater to your audience.

If you wander about aimlessly, well, you will be aimless.

Make sure you present yourself as attractive as you can be. If you look attractive, people will generally assume you must know what you’re talking about compared to someone ugly looking with bad lighting.

And this goes for any profile pics or thumbnails you use, etc. Look attractive in them. Use a filter if you must.

If you plan on making YouTube a career, work hard to avoid having Adsense be your primary form of income. Linus Tech Tips talks about how even with his media empire they are still beholden to the whims of YouTube in a way that still stresses him everytime they release a video

Grift as shamelessly as possible, and you'll have millions and a studio in 5 years.

Biggest advice is don't include music. Removing all sound even better. Someone will make a copyright compliant against all of your content at some point based on matching a few notes of unrelated songs

Are you doing this for money or exposure? Patreon or super chat things on YouTube dwarf the revenue you can get from a video, so if you can find a niche that really interests a particular group of people that may be a better option than trying to cast a wide net.

I know a couple of people outside the tech field who operate their patreon almost like a consultancy. If you pay the £150 you get a couple of hours of one on one discussion and coaching per month. They could only build this on a reputation that they had built up over many years.

Made a YouTube channel 12 years ago.

But stopped making videos after 2 years, really regret it now. It was a completely different scene back then. I would have dropped out of high school and pursued a YouTube channel if I knew it would be this big.

It was really interesting to think about what kind of videos to make and was always excited to check the view count every day. Precious time.

For anyone curious, the channel: https://m.youtube.com/@MrUsukhbayar

It's worth playing around with ChatGPT for YouTube video ideas. You can give ChatGPT titles of popular video in your niche and then ask it to output similar title ideas that are likely to do well on your channel. Then ask it to generate script outlines for those videos.

Here's a useful video from Matt Wolfe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka1Pqk2o3tM&t=612s

disclaimer: no channel, just an observer

Is YouTube the only medium you're considering?

For business, my understanding is that people now find success mainly though multi-channel and upgrade channels, so you would have some shorts/tic-toks, substack, instagram, twitter, ... (Which suggests some IDE support for the various artifacts being repurposed...) The goal seems to be to convert ~0.5% of the free folks to the $200 upsell: the batch of books, the online course (esp. if constantly updated). See e.g., Kat Norton, https://www.hackingwithswift.com, ...

While my personal preference runs to no-fluff-just-stuff, success seems to lie in motivating people with each step, with curiosity and enthusiasm, in part because that targets people who want to do X, but find themselves blocked (in part from frustration, loneliness, ...). It's probably a lot easier to unblock people who are just confused and frustrated, than to give focused people real insight. It may be more valuable as well, to lift all boats.

Your channel should hit the ground running.

The means having a catalogue of videos (10-20?) that will go up together, avatars, banners etc.

People tend to watch a video like it and check out what else you have and mini-binge. Then sub.

If you don't have a small selection of videos they might not find something they like. No sub and you vanish off into the algorithm.

I don't have a YouTube channel, but if I were to create one I'd probably listen to every single podcast appearance from MrBeast since he's basically become the King of YouTube, and he regularly gives very actionable and clear advice.

So many videos seem mostly to be about to showcase the presenter's keyboard shortcut skills. It is annoying to see them type away in an improvised fashion. I prefer more structure and a coherent story being told.

If you want a successful channel within the next few years, you need to upload frequently. At least once or twice a month. You will be rewarded greatly for uploading faster sooner.

What is the goal you're trying to accomplish? Is a YouTube channel the best way?

Thank you everyone for providing great advice and tips

I really appreciate the responses

I started making YouTube videos for my classes back in 2015, currently have around 3.3k subs and just crossed 1 million total views. Link in my profile and MAKE SURE TO SMASH- I'm not doing that...

Others have said it, but audio is 100% critical. Some of my earlier videos were using a dinky Samson Meteorite omnidirectional mic, and the results were subpar imo. I finally picked up a Yeti over COVID remote learning and I am very happy with the results. Side tip, ALWAYS CHECK THAT YOUR MICROPHONE IS ON! It really sucks to knock out a 10 minute video and find out there's no sound...

Play around with your "style" of video - floating head, voice over, literally standing in front of a giant white board, or go wild and use the 3brown1blue animation style. I personally like the floating head with Khan Academy style drawing.

Things that matter if you choose to do the "floating head" style - lighting and deciding if you want to use a green screen.

- Lighting is hit and miss, mostly because the room I currently record in has massive windows so light is always pouring in. I do use a standing lamp with 3 bulbs to help balance out my shadows.

- Green screens are a pain in the ass in my opinion. One of my most viewed videos (on the Luhn Check algorithm, thanks CS0) has me fading in and out. I ended up donating it to the school's visual arts lab when I moved.

If you're going with the Khan Academy / Slides approach, get familiar with OBS and all the little annoyances like making sure menus appear in the recordings (I think its some Windows 7 compatiblity thing?). If you have your head on the screen, try to frame things so your head isn't hiding the material (some of mine have that but always minor stuff).

In regards to tempo, I sort of disagree with the comments on speaking slowly. I do a slightly faster tempo with casual but VERY articulate and excited speech. Many of my comments from my lectures and videos point this out as a positive. Rather than users needing to 1.5x the video, remember that its a recording and if they don't get something, they can rewind. Again, I try to be very articulate with my speech (with no accent) because I know not everyone is from my state. I try to follow an "assume they no nothing but want to learn it" approach, so nothing is hand waved away.

In regards to "what to record" - it helps to have a general plan. There's a lot of intro CS material out there, but that's not always a bad thing. Try to think about what students trying to learn are looking for. Some of my more popular videos are about Microsoft Access.

Growth and Revenue - I can't offer much help. I get some ad revenue like once a year at most. However, the videos are supplemental for my students in my classrooms. I'm not trying to make it a career, just trying to offer people not in my class a chance to see my explanations.

Why?

Entertainment? Trying to make money? Hobby?

My experiences with YouTube and other platforms have been mixed.

I recently setup a personal channel for the occasional development video, for when the content doesn't quite fit into just a written blog post. On such a new channel with no prior uploads and without posting the videos anywhere else, I got close to 500 views on a video about the Godot game engine in less than a month. Yet, another video about Ansible had under 50 views in 3 months.

Meanwhile, a separate gaming YouTube channel where I upload Twitch VODs and such has over 100 videos, yet the most viewed video has under 200 views and there are like 20 subscribers on that channel, whereas on Twitch there are 50 followers.

I don't think it's quite possible to figure out the YouTube algorithm, but in general, I get the feeling (through my lack of success), that:

  - Picking good video topics (popular subjects) probably helps.
  - Picking a good video format (edited videos up to 30 minutes in length, instead of something like unedited stream VODs/super long videos) probably helps.
  - Good presentation (good visual quality and content, some effects/transitions and just competent video editing) probably helps.
  - Good audio (decent mic, audio not peaking but being balanced, some EQ, limited background noise, well articulated speech) probably helps.
  - Getting people who are actually interested in your content watching it and interacting with it (likes, comments, watch time) probably helps.
  - You probably need all of that, as well as a good amount of luck and the right kind of personality/manner of presenting to succeed.

I recently figured I'd try out YouTube Shorts on the gaming channel - I got about 400 views in a single day after bringing over some Twitch clips, but then views for those more or less fell off a cliff. Seems like they were presented to a wider audience at first to see if they're interested and when there wasn't too much interest, the content wasn't offered up that much.

The same applies to other types of videos - if you make development videos and nobody is interested in the topic or your video itself, then growth is unlikely. Thus, try to go for quality over quantity, yet upload somewhat regularly, if possible. Probably share the videos in any relevant communities as well.

I wouldn't call my experiences positive, but I guess that helps avoid survivorship bias ("Hey, I failed at the thing, here's some of the stuff I did and it didn't work."). At the end of the day, try to have fun doing it, listen to what the more successful people out there have to say, yet be prepared to put in more work than initially anticipated, sometimes with way less than optimal results. Good luck!

[dead]

I created a youtube account in 2006. Sometimes I take or edit videos and re-host/syndicate them on youtube. The end.