[00:00:00] This episode is a little bit different. This is taken from a YouTube video that I uploaded at the end of 2022. This was one year after I started my YouTube channel and I was reflecting on the principles I learned. Now, if you don't have a YouTube channel, this video is still going to be extremely valuable to you because of the principles that I talk about.
The whole point of this video is how to start when you don't feel ready. If you have a big dream that you've been sitting on that you just haven't taken action on. This is the episode for you. Okay, let's get into it.
Welcome to the creative biz launch podcast, where we talk about how to grow your creative business and scale it to six figures, whether you're a photographer, filmmaker, or designer, you'll find something of value here.
When we have big dreams, big goals. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to actually start. The truth is, that we'll never actually feel ready to start. You'll never feel ready, but that's kind of the whole point. In October of 2020, I thought it would be cool to start a YouTube channel and share what I knew about photography.
I [00:01:00] recorded a video, and it actually sat on my hard drive for three whole months. I didn't think I was ready and I didn't think I could stick to an upload schedule. Then January, 2021 came around and I was like, all right, I'm never going to be ready. So let's just jump in. On January 4th, 2021, my first video was published and it was terrible.
I think it's still up there on my channel. So if you go search Chris Pietta on YouTube and scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll be able to see it. In this video, I talked in a monotone. The jump cuts sucked and I looked robotic, but none of that really mattered. I hit upload and I put it out to the world.
I wasn't ready, but I jumped right into it. And that's a principle I live by, whether that's starting my business, quitting my full time job, signing up for an Ironman, you're never going to feel ready. The right time is now it's always now. So what would I do if I were to start my YouTube channel again?
What if I was to start over this year today? Well, I would do [00:02:00] exactly what I did back in 2021 when I started. That's what this episode is going to be about.
How do we grow as content creators and more specifically business owners?
Before I dive into things, I like to do my research. I like to learn about a subject and learn about it in depth. I looked up a lot of YouTube videos on how to actually grow on the platform. All the big creators were saying the same exact thing. Post consistently for a year or two and your channel will grow.
Get better every single video and you're going to grow on YouTube. Post good quality content at least once a week throughout that time period and YouTube will begin to show your videos to people on the platform. And that's really, really boring advice post once a week for two years. That is, that is such simple advice, but I hear this advice all the time.
The successful people tell you to do the boring work over and over again, because that's how they find success. It's not the fancy hacks that get them to where they are. It's doing the actions every single day. That moves their [00:03:00] needle forward.
So what was my plan? Well, I actually want to focus on quantity versus quality at the start. I knew that if I upload a lot of videos in a very fast timeframe, I'm going to learn a lot and I'm going to show YouTube that I'm serious about my plan. My first videos were all about teaching other people everything I knew about photography and my journey.
Everyone said upload consistently, so that was the priority. I knew that my first 30 videos weren't going to get any views, so I prioritized quantity over quality. I wanted the YouTube algorithm to know I was serious about making content. And maybe I was trying to prove to myself that I was serious. That is the key message here.
Now when I say quantity, you still do need good quality. I just wasn't using the fancy b roll and fancy animations other people are using. I still had really good camera quality, good audio, good lighting, all this stuff. This stuff has to be solid, and I had to learn how to actually record to take good talking headshots, how to [00:04:00] create a cool looking background, how to create good audio.
I learned all these skills. I even took Ali Abdaal's course on how to edit YouTube videos. All this stuff has to be good, or no one else is gonna watch. I got the bare minimum stuff done. And from there, I focused on quality.
My scripting and my stories weren't amazing, but I learned quickly along the way. I told myself I would upload 30 videos in 3 months, so about 3 a week. And by the end of March 2021, my channel would have 30 videos. And I'd be able to take a step back and analyze it all. I also told myself I'd keep this as a side project.
Just like my photography business was a side project during my 9 5, YouTube was a side project during this period of time. I mainly worked on the channel outside of my typical photography business hours. So, that was my plan. When I uploaded my first video, I of course shared it to my Instagram audience.
I thought that I would gain a huge number of subscribers from that. Turns out no one really cared. I gained 13 subscribers from when I posted that to Instagram. [00:05:00] For anyone saying, I don't have a big social media following, I can't start a big YouTube channel. That's not true at all. When I started my YouTube channel, I had 15, 000 Instagram followers.
And those didn't contribute to my YouTube growth at all. Over the course of January, I uploaded three times a week for a total of 12 videos. I would post them to my Instagram story. At the end of the month, I was at 75 subscribers. That was really discouraging because I thought people would be more interested.
But now it was time to put in the work. My goal was to post 30 videos in three months, and I was going to stick to that. I was making guides on exposure, how to edit in Lightroom, how to navigate the state of the world as photographers. Slowly my videos were getting better and better. I got the lighting down.
I got a better camera. I started looking less robotic and I was proud of the content I was putting out. Now, at the end of three months, I had 149 subscribers, 30 videos published, and I was happy. I was so proud that I actually met my goal of 30 videos. [00:06:00] My goal was never subscribers. It was to publish those 30 videos and I did that.
Now for stage two. There are three things I want to do to grow my YouTube channel in stage two. Niche down. Have better quality and invest in an editor. I niched down into the creative business and product photography space and I'm still doing that stuff. I put in more time into the videos and I upped the production quality and the value I delivered.
And I even invested in an editor for my videos.
I was three months into my YouTube journey at this point and having a lot of fun, but I wasn't seeing the growth that I wanted. I was following all the right steps. It was time to niche down and really up my production quality so that my videos would resonate with a close knit group of people. My videos went from generic photography tutorials into what my creative business was all about.
I began teaching product photography and the business side. I quickly found a passion for teaching that stuff, and I realized no one was really teaching this kind of stuff at the time. I was creating videos that were in depth about the client [00:07:00] acquisition process. I talked about sales and marketing and fulfillment.
I wanted other photographers to be able to build up their own businesses and make a living from it.
With all this extra effort, I needed some help. It was time to hire an editor. I knew that that was something that was crucial to my channel because I wanted to keep putting out content, but I still had to focus on my other business.
When I was editing my videos, they would take me 4 to 8 hours to edit, and I just couldn't justify that kind of time spent. And then came Jatin. We worked together, and it was such a great decision. He would edit all of my videos exactly how I wanted, and he'd add in some fun elements to the videos in his own creative style.
We were building something great together, but this did come at a significant cost to me. I wasn't making any money from my YouTube channel, but I viewed this as an investment just like you invest in the stock market for returns. Later on, I invested in myself in my business because I knew that I would make this money back eventually.
And these are the kinds of investments I love to make. Whether it's investing in people for my company or [00:08:00] investing in my own education or coaching through online courses. I always invest in myself first, and these investments have paid off way more than any investment in the stock market ever could.
Now stage three. I had all the systems in place. I knew what I had to do, so I just doubled down on what was working.
I worked on videos that would appeal to a bigger audience, so I reviewed the iPad mini and the iPhone mini. And I put a photographer's spin on these reviews and they reached a very large audience from here. I hit a thousand subscribers. I had 4, 000 watch hours and I was ready to apply for that YouTube partner program.
I joined the program in November of 2021, 11 months after I started. And to be honest, my goal was to reach this point within a year. So I was super, super happy about this. And since then the channels just taken off, I've been putting consistent effort into it. We have new videos every single week. And the whole point of this podcast is to show you that you don't [00:09:00] need the perfect conditions to start.
Focus on the quantity at first, focus on putting in the reps, no matter what it is. You can sit around and research forever. You can read all the books on a certain topic, but until you actually start doing it and start doing it consistently, You're not going to grow. So whether you're trying to grow a business, work on your fitness, whatever it is, start now, put it in the reps and make it work.
That's all I got today. If you found this valuable, please drop a review. And for those of you who aren't following on YouTube, I am Chris Pieta on there. Please follow. We've got amazing content that comes out every single week, super educational videos, and I'll catch you in the next one.
