Notes on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWNGqmukmE ## Step 1: Implement the super Mario effect Basically, no1 ever plays super Mario brothers and falls into a pit and never wants to play again. You immediately learn from the failure and you want to try agian. Gamify your challenges and think about them like a video game. You'll learn more, have more success, and have more fun doing it. If you fail, you don't die. You get to start again. Colin: Get your finances taken care of (get a job), and experiment with Youtube knowing you won't die if things go wrong Samir: Are you okay with this taking 3-5 years to take off? ## Step 2: Identify what you're optimizing for What does success mean? Are you looking for money? More time? Experiences? Write out from start to finish what a dream day in your life looks like... then do it for a week, and a year. Make your goals tangible - understand what you want. "Success is the opportunity to do more of what you're doing" If your channel were to be successful, make sure it's doing something you enjoy because you'll be doing a lot more of what it is. ## Step 3: Market analysis Your first product is attention. You can't create that in a vacuum. Who are the audience you want? What are they already watching? There's 2 main ways people find new content: - Browse - Your face appears on YT home when they see you - Suggested - They just watched a video and on the right side there's similar videos Study your community. You won't gain an audience in a vacuum - they'l already be apart of an existing community. Most likely, your audience will find you from suggested content. ## Step 4: Choose your value proposition Study your niche and understand how you can stand out and what value you can provide, and how it's different. Create the equivalent of a Pinterest board - a Google slide deck or keynote slide deck and you screenshot a TON of thumbnails and put them on a page. Then you read comments from the community, screenshot them, positive/negative, etc. What do they like? What do they not like? What are the most commented on things? Then look at the first 30 second scripts in your niche - how do they open videos? What's the common / different ways to do it? 30s vs 7s? Even if your goal is to make money, make a board of all the sponsors. The one thing about story telling in general is it all involves conflict and contrast - that should exist in your thumbnail as well. One way to find your value prop is to create a table of Identity - Emotion - Action. | Identity | Emotion | Action | | --------------- | ----------- | ----------- | | Casual chef | Entertained | Comment | | College student | Educated | Cook a meal | Who are these people? Why do they watch? You need to ask that question. To make a casual cook feel safe and confident in the Kitchen, something might be "10 cooking mistakes to avoid" ## Step 5: Write 100 titles Ideas are the engine for a Youtube channel. Develop something called an Idea Bank. This can be in a notebook, Google sheets, Notion, etc. Spotter has a tool called Title exploder (AI can help with idea generation). Colin writes all of his in a notebook - he intentionally doesn't use AI because he wants to keep track of even bad ideas. He uses what isn't good to reveal what is good. 5 Ideas a day for 30 days is good. To start a YT channel from scratch you need atleast 100 ideas to pick from. When you look at those 100, you narrow them down to 30. Then 2-3 of them might be good enough to develop them. ## Step 6: Find a testing ground Find low lift ways to put your idea into the world and see if it resonates with your community. For ex, Samir posts some concepts on LinkedIn, and if it does well, he knows it might be a good YT video... However, most people don't have a poppin LinkedIn. So instead, you should use your social circles and the people around you. Does it resonate when you tell people about it? You can also start with a short form video to see if it does well - maybe a 60 second short, and if it does well, turn it into a long form video. ## Quick review of what we've covered so far Phase 1: Understand your own motivations Phase 2: Understand your community and what they care about ## Step 7: Scripting a video Pre production is really important before you even start filming. Most Youtube videos are just Title, Thumbnails, and list. Beginning middle and end are important, especially the Hook. The first 7 and 30 seconds of the video is extremely important. As you're developing the script, from the list of 100 ideas, get 20 ideas that could be short form ideas, 10 that could be long form ideas. In both of those documents, the hook will be the most important piece. What are the first few words of each of those videos. Does the hook identify and meet the expectations of the viewer and does it give them something new to keep them watching? A lot of storytelling is about unanswered questions. Basically, in your first few lines, you validate the video and then you open up a new unanswered question. When looking at your script, ask yourself, is there an unanswered question? And when that final question is answered, the video needs to end. ## Step 8?: Start with shorts / lean production style If you're starting from scratch, make sure you have a really lean video style. Don't overcomplicate things and add tons of stuff to create friction. If the idea is good, you should be able to execute the idea just from filming with an iphone. Think of things from a 52 week window, not a 1 week window. If i started this today, could I make a video every week for the next 52 weeks. Have a lean production style. You'll have to make 100 videos to really understand your video style. To make 100 videos faster, you should start with shorts. It might be a good testing ground, and it's a great way to subscribe to the channel and bring people in before you commit to longform. If we upload a long form and upload a short about the same topic, the long form does well.. However, if you do start with shorts, think about 2-3 shorts per long form video. The baseline is watch time -- did the video click, did they watch, were they satisfied? If you have a good title and thumbnail, that attracts the audience you want, trust that they are open to 20/30minutes of this topic. If you did niche analysis right, most of your content will show up in suggested. More content is being watched on TV, and when people watch on TV, they're much more likely to be willing to watch for longer.. In the Youtube business, the channel's gunna take years... how do we get lean and get to the point where we can say "the video is good enough, let's ship it". If the majority of people watch for 85% that's good enough - don't spend a lot of time after the 85% mark since the returns are diminishing. For the first 10-15 videos you're searching for formats... and that never really ends. ## Step 9?: Data tracking ### CTR Packaging is super important. You're going to live in a world tracking [[CTR]]. No matter where you are, what you do, the most important part of Youtube is the thumbnail and the title. [[Thumbnail]] and [[Title]] are the most important things. period. Your CTR is the metric of how well you're doing. - Does this resonate with the viewer? - Did I put enough curiosity into the viewer for them to click? Of the people that saw this thumbnail what % of people clicked it. A good CTR is 10%. More than 10% = video will take off. 10% or high on launch = it's really resonating. If it's 15%+ it's a "certified banger". Track this: - Day of release - 7 days after - 30 days after The common trajectory might be 10% -> 7% -> 4-5%. If you're below that, keep experimenting with different packaging. Even if a video has come out YEARS AGO, they will go back and and update those videos - because with suggested / browse your videos can still blow up years later. The lift in an entire catalog from an entire thumbnail change can be really dramatic. We changed 1 thumbnail from a year ago -> CTR increases by 3% -> those people then watch our newer videos. Those smaller shifts can lift your ENTIRE catalogue of videos. Tracking how your entire catalogue does is a good idea. ### First 30 second retention Make it incredibly visual. Aim for higher than 75% of people still watching by the first 30s. ### Avg view % and avg view duration If people leave after 30 seconds, it means the first 30s was great but the rest of it wasn't what people expected. If it's a very long video, it's normal for the end to be at the 50% range. If it's just a 20min video, you want atleast 50% avg view duration. Make a spreadsheet: - This video when I launched it, what was the CTR, first 30s, and avg view duration - Repeat for first day, 7 days, 30 days ## Step 10?: Macro data to track ### Average views per video Is it staying consistent? Is it continuing to rise as time goes on? Making sure that you're in a trustworthy space with a consistent amount of viewers is important to grow your "business" as a Youtuber. How do we know if we're growing? Look at new vs reoccurring visitors. If one of the videos really pops, you'll most likely see that there's a ton of new people watching the video. Make sure you have a CTA to Subscribe because it makes a _huge_ difference. Some videos don't get much more of a viral viewership, with more returning visitors. It's okay to mix these videos aimed at both types of viewers. ### Browse vs Suggested & Device differences TV might make up 30% of your views, and have a 5x higher view duration.. Stats like these help inform you on where your content should move in the future. ## Final thoughts > Networking is overrated. Go do something great and your network will emerge by itself - Naval Do something different and great in your niche and people and network will come. The network value compounds at a high degree when you're doing well. Patience is incredibly important when starting from scratch.