How to START YouTube in 2024 (Beginner’s Guide)

if you were starting a YouTube channel in 2024 what would you do you have to start messy what if my first videos suck they will your first videos will be your worst videos you know be terrible one of the biggest mistakes that people are making is they're not knowing what matters most on YouTube one of the biggest opportunities if you want to succeed on YouTube is you got to just press record so Sean if you were starting a YouTube channel in 20124 what would you do especially considering that you've been in the YouTube game for

17 years years now you've started multiple channels three silver play buttons how would you get started in this new year yeah so I wrote down five things when I thought about this question and the first one is courage you have to start messy really the first thing that holds us back is our self and our fears and our mindsets we feel like we're not ready we feel like man is anybody going to care we feel like am I going to be judged is there going to be negative comments and these are all legitimate mindsets but

you're not going to get results if you don't start you're never going to know if you don't start everything that you want in life is outside of your comfort zone and I would encourage you to just start posting videos just try something don't overthink it because we do learn by doing and I know for me because I didn't have Fierce Clarity when I started I just started posting random videos on my Sean canell Channel there's a million lessons of mistakes I made but the benefit of that was I started to learn how to film I

was learned how to edit I experimented with this topic that topic and even though the brand ended up being kind of not great and the niche wasn't really clear and I was all over the place and that wasn't my successful YouTube channel I haven't even uploaded there in years it was a personal development experience a skill development experience and I like to say I have four YouTube channels that help me eventually start a successful one so absolutely in 2024 start as soon as possible don't put it off don't just watch YouTube videos don't just consume

information we learn by doing take action press record you got it takes courage you got to get uncomfortable so just start so this is one of the most common pieces of advice that you give people is that they have to just start and so it might sound like the kind of thing that we just kind of push this side like yeah yeah of course Sean's going to say that but I would just challenge everybody who's listening to this like yeah but have you actually done it yet because it is actually so underrated that you just

have to keep doing it and keep doing it week after week right Sean and so it's that showing up every week even though you are afraid or it hasn't been going as well so continuous courage and so what is point number two yeah so Point number two is Clarity if we're talking about how do I start a successful YouTube channel from scratch one of the most underrated things is getting your Niche right getting a your topic right and don't let that be confused with starting messy and don't let that be confused nobody wants to hear

this but let's say you started a YouTube channel wrong I think that's still okay it never really worked you did 50 to 100 videos one of the most painful things could be pivoting your Niche or starting a second Channel but people make the mistake that a lot of times that's what it takes to find success there's a stat that says the average successful entrepreneur that like gets through the the dip of hard work and getting cash flow and getting startup happening and actually makes it to some level of success and sustainability has started 2.6 businesses

so any successful entrepreneur business owner that now has a successful business on average had at least one fail or two fail before they found the one that worked I think that could be similar to YouTube as well and it may not be that you actually have to have a different Channel but I think that should give you permission to like what if my first videos suck they will your first videos will be your worst videos you know it' be terrible but though you know your way to get to success I heard one person put it

this way the the recipe to get to success is suck suck suckcess your first three or 30 videos might suck they might not be very good but that's what leads to success so start before you're ready get clear on your Niche get clear on who your Channel's for what problem does it solve and get clear that again if you want this to be financially viable come up with the money plan come up with kind of a business plan for your channel ahead of time to like start with the end of Mind look down the road

what is it you want to build and start a channel intelligently and strategically by thinking through some of those things I think it's key what you're saying about the ability to Pivot it that one out of those three businesses ideas is the one that takes off but there's two failed ones in there because so many people ask us like well I I have this channel already and like I don't know what to do with it so we're saying then don't do that channel like if if follow all of the advice listen to Sean kenel and

other experts and actually you know don't be afraid to Pivot and to change into um you know after you're taking in all of this advice and so I think that one is really key for a lot of people listening because a lot of people are going to need to Pivot after listening to a lot of this training and so um that takes us into Point number three yeah so Point number three is create a schedule you know what gets scheduled gets done it's in a way also like create a system for how you're going to

be producing content um we don't rise to the level of our goals we fall to the level of our systems what's a system well I am researching on this day I'm recording on this day my aunt's going to watch the kids Saturday morning so that I can film everything in life I think for a life well- lived that's effective and productive is going to be empowered by systems and so having a schedule is one of those I would recommend one video a week and I would want to Define that one thoughtful strategic quality researched crafted

video per week I don't mean it has to be edited or anything again you may be able to just hit record talk for seven minutes turn the camera off and upload it but for that 7 minutes to be as powerful as possible having a little practice having a little planning um having some notes in front of you thinking about what the title is ahead of time thinking through it prior planning prevents poor performance and one of the biggest opportunities if you want to succeed on YouTube is consolidating time and saving people time here's what I

mean there a really successful personal finance YouTuber named Graham stefen one of the things he's know know for is he puts out great research videos that are concise clear and they really take complex information and they make it simple well what does he do he's known for researching 20 30 40 hours for one video if he researches and plans for 20 hours and the final product of his video is 10 minutes it's one of the reasons why the video is so successful because we're all so busy in our lives you're doing the heavy lifting again

even if you don't edit if you take an hour or two hours or 3 hours to prepare and then all of that time preparing ing you've Consolidated it down into a 3 to 5 minute or a 13-minute video you're doing a service to people that's why people feel the value of it I've heard it said that the definition of Excellence is doing the best you have with what you have right now so Excellence is a spectrum of course if you're not comparing yourself to other people you just want to beat your previous best if you

start messy if you have a decent level of clarity of this is the direction I'm going this is who my channel is for what problem is going to solve and then you commit to once a week a lot of things can happen momentum happens you learn as you go you start getting a feedback because you're putting outputs out there um you're you evaluate the results as you go and you are continuing to approve we always say get 1% better Baseline upload one high effort based on the resources you have and the time you have video

per week and commit to that you're going to see crazy momentum over the next year if you're looking to get your first th000 subscribers or make your first $1,000 on YouTube then join our free YouTube challenge that many other small creators have joined and seen tons of success during this free challenge Sean is going to share some of the best strategies for growing to your first 1,000 subscribers on YouTube as well as making your first $1,000 just go to tube1 challenge.com or check the link down in the description so Point number four then topics I

think that in 20124 one of the biggest mistakes that people are making is they're not knowing what matters most on YouTube because the Creator who understands the viewer best wins what's top of mind for people it's the problem they're worrying about every night it's their most their highest ambition it's one of their biggest problems it's troubling them it's causing conflict in their relationships it's one of their desires like topic is just such such a big deal and if you talk about the right Topic at the right time look at anybody that covers trending news or

something that is timely in the moment the thumbnail might be terrible like all they did was get a few things in the title right uh to at least you just know what it's about but the fact that you wanted that information right now that story right now so I think it's about topics people are listening to this right Sean I'm at zero I'm starting from scratch how do I get discovered and yeah and people don't know you and people are not searching for you and they're not looking for you and why would they cuz they

don't know you yet and you Fe you're in obscurity so what you want to be asking if you're starting a channel from scratch is how can I tap into influence that's greater than my own most people think I wish somebody famous would shout me out I wish I could get a famous interview but people don't realize that products are influencers one of the ways I grew my brand was I talked about particular camera models you didn't know Sean canel yet you knew you were looking for a reviewer or comparison of the Canon 60D you found

that video you saw that that was my experience video you know teaching how to use cameras the best lenses and then some level of connection happened there and the influential thing was a search based topic was something that somebody was looking for so I actually starting a channel from scratch and even for established creators that want to continue to grow I would not ignore search-based content in a suggested world and I'll explain what that is briefly but search-based content is actually kind of a forgotten art and it's probably one of the biggest opportunities for people

in 20124 yes we talk a lot about pain points so problem and solution your channel should identify a problem and I'd also present the solution and every video should do that as well no matter what like channel topic video topic um we always recommend that people think about problem and solution right which is why you're saying like that search-based content is really going to be the where the money is for most people starting a new channel and we do talk through all of that inside of our course video ranking Academy and so going deep into

each one of those and the structure of each one of those videos is something that we can like walk people through as well as picking a right topic and all actually every one of these points we could go deeper in inside of our course and so um I think we'll have like a link in that if anybody wants to check it out but you take us into Point number five yes number one courage start messy number two Clarity one video per week or just get your schedule dialed in topics and then finally extreme Focus that's

my number five extreme focus and I learned this the hard way so this kind of makes me think about my Journey on YouTube the first channel I started was in 2007 from my church I started my personal Channel I started a Clear Vision media channel for my business then I started a channel called think International with my friend Jeff Morris which was like a faith-based channel and out of think International I started getting questions about cameras and what gear we were using to produce those videos so that led to the start of think media I

was trying to actually simultaneously run all four of those channels I was doing way too much and that was not the only thing I was doing my life is just as complex as anybody else's I mean I know people listen to this it's like you got stuff to do you might have got kids you got school you got work you're busy when I think about extreme Focus I think that the problem is if you try and Chase four rabbits you'll end up catching none of them or you'll just be so tired and fatigued and you'll

delay your eventual success because you've diluted your energy in four directions when you could have compounded it in one so I think there's a couple mistakes that people make when starting a YouTube channel they maybe get an idea they have a topic but if you're listening to this you're probably like me you're creative you have new ideas every day you might have new ideas for YouTube channels every day new businesses New Opportunities you see you might be like oo I should talk about AI oh I actually I want to start a bone broth company what

I want to you know start doing a book A book club I want to write a book I want to write an ebook and that's as I spin off and that's not just YouTube because if you're listening to this too you're like maybe I want to create an online course when am I starting my merch line how do I start my patreon how do I slow down take a breath extreme Focus chasing too many rabbits might lead to so much exhaustion so much discouragement so much burnout that would have been avoidable if you guarded your

focus so I've heard Focus stands for this follow one course and successful Focus what's the one channel you're focusing on what's the one brand You're Building what's the one business you're building and I'm actually pretty stunned and I know that maybe at least half people listening to this though they want to start from scratch but they want to start three Channels cuz they're like man I got so many passions but now that I've thought about how like the channel should have a clear who and a clear what well the answer must be then to just

divide the things I want to talk about on three channels that would be an answer for organization but that's not the best solution for your sanity your success and your momentum if you had to pick one pick one it's hard enough to make one business successful why are you trying to make two businesses successful and in 2024 we got more noise coming at us than ever before there's more side quests on Instagram and distractions and more ads coming at you that you could be hit by and more business opportunities because even as you're starting a

YouTube channel again you're like oh what there's like new tools to make my merch which yes like eventually you could make merch and you could get your T-shirt going and and you're on day one and you're like should I use patreon or should I use YouTube channel memberships on day one neither you should start get one video up a week make sure your topics are good get clear and like be consistent because you don't even have enough momentum yet to be like worrying about the full Business Development I'm not saying put that in your business

plan it's great to have Clarity of at least the general direction of the best ways to monetize your particular Niche but people get so distracted by so many different things and it delays success at best it delays success at worst it just wears you down too much you can't think clearly you got noise coming out you you're also you're maybe watching too much content on YouTube you're watching too many experts you're reading too many books you're buying too many books these are like all things that I that I've done myself you're you're going too many

directions at once let's make 2024 entirely different know the season that you're in keep it simple and focus if you enjoyed this content and want to take your YouTube channel to the next level just click or tap the link on the screen or go to tube 1K challenge.com to join our next live YouTube challenge you'll learn our best tips and strategies that are working here at think media and I think you'll love it