5 Lessons From 8 Years on YouTube

Big thank you to everyone who replied to last week’s email with more Harry Potter fan fiction recommendations. Just reading those will tide me over for the next few weeks at least 🙂 If you’re interested, the recommendations were: Manacled (thanks Shireen), Innocent (thanks Brian), Oh God Not Again + The Arithmancer (thanks Shaurya), Harry Potter and the Problem of Potions + Dwelling (thanks Clarice), The Darkness Within (thanks Mohammed-Hadi).

Anyway, this month marks eight years since I started properly making videos on YouTube. That’s literally as long as I spent in medicine (6 years at med school + 2 years as a doctor). Looking back, there are some things I wish someone had told me at the beginning – I suspect they apply to any creative thing you might like to do.

1. You don’t need a grand plan to get started

8 years ago, I had no master plan. No grand vision. No carefully crafted strategy about hitting six million subscribers or building a business empire.

I just thought it might be fun to make videos, I’d been wanting to try YouTube for ages, and I thought that if I made videos about how to pass the BMAT medical admission test, some % of viewers might think I’m legit and sign up to my BMAT course.

I set myself the goal of: “I’m just going to make 1 video a week for 2 years and then we’ll see what happens”.

In hindsight, I think this lack of a plan was an advantage. If I’d tried to map out some perfect five-year plan, I never would have started because it would have felt overwhelming and probably wrong anyway. How could I have possibly predicted where things would go?

There’s this line from Rumi that I love: “When you walk the way, the way will appear.” You just have to take one step, then another, and the path becomes clearer as you go.

2. 95% of people never start, and most who do don’t keep going

The stats for podcasts are interesting – more than 80% of podcasts have fewer than 3 episodes. Less than 1% have more than 20 episodes. I suspect, based on 5 years of teaching our Part-Time YouTuber Academy course, that YouTube channels are similar. Loads of people THINK about maybe starting a YouTube channel someday. Almost none (in the grand scheme of things) actually make their first video. And of those that do make their first video, almost none make more than 20.

So the game is actually quite simple: just get started, then just keep going.

I think people get stuck on the first part because they’re addicted to certainty. If you’ve spent your life following clear career paths (medicine, law, accounting, whatever), the idea of doing something without a clear yellow brick road to follow feels terrifying. What if it goes nowhere? What if you put all this time and effort into something and it doesn’t materialise in CV points?

When it comes to creative-type things like YouTube, there are no guarantees. There’s certainly a lot you can do to stack the deck in your favour, but the lion’s share of the work is: get started, keep going, make micro adjustments as you go, do it for ages.

3. External motivation only gets you so far

For the first few years, making money from YouTube was incredibly motivating. But after a while, money stops being a reliable source of energy. In fact, when I focus too much on the money, it actually sucks the motivation out of everything.

What keeps me going now? Two C’s: connection and contribution.

The connection I get from comments, DMs, people coming up to me in the street saying the content helped them, people attending the in-person events we host – that feels meaningful in a way that money doesn’t.

And the feeling of contribution, the feeling that the stuff I make and stick on the internet might be actually helping people – that becomes the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning and continuing to do this.

4. Even fun things become work (so you’ve got to keep making them fun)

Being a YouTuber sounds amazing from the outside. And it is. But like anything you do professionally, even the most enjoyable things start feeling like work after a while.

The key is constantly finding new wells of enjoyment. When video editing stopped being fun, I found other aspects to get excited about. When working remotely got boring, I hired people in-person (even though it’s more expensive) because it made the process more enjoyable.

Sometimes I make videos that I know won’t get as many views because they’re more fun for me to create. Even other aspects of our business, like this weekly email newsletter – it’s not optimised for maximum engagement, or for maximum advertising, or trying to forcibly “convert” you into becoming a paid customer… but it’s fun to do, and it’s nice to get replies when I gush about Harry Potter fan fiction, so I keep doing it.

You’ve got to be okay with leaving money on the table sometimes. The happiest creators I know are the ones who sometimes choose fun over finances.

5. You never know how things will turn out

Eight years ago, if you’d told me I’d be a full-time YouTuber, bestselling author, have the freedom to work from anywhere, make enough money to not worry about money, and genuinely love what I do for work – I would’ve had a stroke and a hernia at the same time.

Jeff Bezos has this great analogy: in baseball, the maximum you can score is four points (a home run). But in business, there’s no upper limit – if something works, you could get a million points or a billion points. If something works, it can completely transform your life in ways you never imagined.

I tried seven different business ideas before YouTube. Six were complete failures, one was moderately successful. But YouTube has been a home run that’s unlocked everything else.

The thing is, you never know which swing is going to be the one that changes everything. You just have to keep taking shots.

Concluding Thoughts

If there’s something you want to try – a creative project, a side business, learning a new skill – just start.

Don’t wait for the perfect plan or the perfect moment.

And once you start, commit to sticking with it longer than feels comfortable. Most people quit right before things get interesting.

I couldn’t have imagined keeping this going for 8 years when I got started. But now 8 years feels like rookie numbers. We’re just getting started 🙂

Have a great week!

Ali xx