One week into the 90-day YouTube monetization challenge! The initial goal was ambitious: three long-form videos per week. Starting with 559 subscribers and 329 watch hours, let's dive into the first week's progress, challenges, and learnings in this intense push for YouTube growth.

Week 1 Recap Video

Catch up on the first week's journey, the demanding video creation schedule, surprising discoveries about content quality, and the initial numbers update.

Achieving the Impossible: Three Videos in One Week

Success! Three videos were uploaded this week, shattering previous limiting beliefs about production capacity. This is the most content ever created in a single week, a significant step in the video creation process.

Surprising Feedback: Authenticity Over Polish?

Unexpectedly, the self-edited, less-polished videos received highly positive feedback. Viewers described them as more authentic compared to previous, professionally edited content. This challenges the prior focus on perfection and suggests that perhaps the raw, quicker video creation style resonates more. It's early days, but a promising sign for the current content strategy.

The Demanding Schedule for YouTube Growth

Maintaining this pace requires a rigorous schedule:

• Monday: Ideate, script, film Video 1
• Tuesday: Edit Video 1
• Wednesday: Upload Video 1, Research
• Thursday: Ideate, script, film Video 2
• Friday: Edit Video 2
• Saturday: Upload Video 2, Ideate, script, film Video 3
• Sunday: Edit Video 3 (Upload Monday)

This intense schedule demands long hours and constant focus on video creation and content strategy.

Addressing the Risk of Burnout

The biggest threat to completing the 90-day challenge is burnout. The current pace is energizing but unsustainable without mitigation. Finding ways to incorporate breaks, walks, or social time will be crucial moving forward to maintain momentum for YouTube growth.

Content Strategy: Build in Public & Growth Videos

The weekly strategy involves one "build in public" video (like this update) and two "growth" videos appealing to a broader audience. This week's growth videos involved deeper ideation, inspired by insights on topic/packaging. For instance, analysing Ryan Trahan involved extensive research (20 pages of notes) and deliberate packaging inspired by successful channels, focusing topics on aspiring creator interests. This detailed content strategy approach took ~2 hours for ideation alone.

Week 1 Performance Analytics

This week's videos performed well relative to channel history (ranked 1/10, 2/10, 3/10). However, traffic sources were primarily external (e.g., Twitter links) and channel pages, not browse features, which are key for reaching new audiences and significant YouTube growth. Click-through rates (CTR) were good, suggesting effective titles/thumbnails, but average percentage viewed was low, indicating a need to improve retention within the video creation process.

Monetization Progress: Week 1 Update

Time for the numbers:

• Start (Day 1): 559 Subscribers / 329 Watch Hours
• End of Week 1: 600 Subscribers / 355 Watch Hours
• Gains this week: +41 Subscribers / +26 Watch Hours

Still a long way to go, especially on watch hours, but it's progress. 83 days remain in the challenge.

Looking Ahead: 83 Days to Go

Week one is complete. Thank you for the incredible support and encouragement received so far. Feedback on these updates is welcome! Consistency in video creation and refining the content strategy remain the focus for continued YouTube growth.