Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Here's a video about my first month on YouTube! I'll go into details about my background, expectations vs reality and showing my YouTube Analytics for anyone out there thinking about starting a channel or growing as a small YouTuber like me! Feel free to follow me on instagram: @kikoga
For my background, I work as a civil engineer here in Hawaii and just wanted to share my story about things I went through in my life in the financial realm: buying a house, budgeting, and basic financial management. I'm not a millionaire, never filmed a YouTube video before, used a video editing software, didn't have a great camera, or even subscribed to any channels on YouTube. I just was always intrigued by YouTube and was excited to share my story mostly to help others not make the same mistakes I did starting out in the world after college, thus I became a part time YouTuber.
So I expected being a part time YouTuber to take some time but I didn't really realize how much time it would take. For me, I work roughly 12 hours per day during the week and a few hours on the weekend for my regular job, so I'm spending the other 4-5 hours of each day and all my weekends trying to film, edit, write scripts, and research for my videos. I'm probably easily putting in 20-30 hours per week on top of my job trying to be a small YouTuber. Granted a lot of this is self inflicted since I am just starting out, and I want to make sure my videos aren't trash so I may take a little more time than most.
I also expected that I wouldn't get caught up in the analytics of YouTube but I did. So I'm right there with everyone else tracking views, looking at watch time, and yes, comparing myself to other channels and trying to figure out what they're doing to grow. So it can be helpful to do these things, but also if it starts to consume you it can become discouraging and in the past week or so I've shifted my focus to just posting two good videos per week. Forget the views, forget the subs, just make two good videos per week for a year and see where I am at. It takes off added stress and especially I don't want my part time YouTube venture to negatively affect my current job. I was there too watching all the videos about how to grow your channel, how to get your first 100 subscribers, how to get your first 1000 subscribers, how to grow on youtube in 2021, how to get more views etc.
I expected that if I followed the best practices of YouTube: SEO, consistent posting, commenting on other channels, good thumbnails, jumping on trending topics etc I would get easy growth really fast. And in reality, I think that it's good to have those things, but my growth in my first month was more from me just starting the channel and my friends and family supporting. In the long run, I think these things are good, but I thought that knowing all these things before I started would give me a good push, I haven't seen it yet, but hopefully in due time.
Here's the things I was taught through programs and other YouTubers about growth. SEO is search engine optimization meaning that your videos need to be searchable for YouTube to know how to push it. This means your title, tags, and description need to have the same keywords in it. Starting out you need to be more specific and targeted on your keyword because you can't compete with the larger channels on broader topics. You want your video to rank on the first page of whatever relatively commonly searched term you are going for. Posting multiple times a week and videos 10 min and longer help with growth because YouTube pushes channels that constantly bring an audience and the longer you keep your viewers on YouTube the better. Jumping on trending topics can accelerate your growth, and when you get that one video that pushes you to a different tier of views, you need to make more videos about that topic to keep the momentum going.
I expected that a lot of people had started making YouTube channels, but I definitely underestimated the amount of people around the world starting especially in my financial niche. It is really awesome to see so many people putting out different types of content, but it also just shows too how much competition is out there and how you need your videos to stand out amongst the millions out there.
I expected YouTube to be fun and in reality it really is! Though its more time consuming than I thought, I really enjoy the process and I love providing value to others. Nothing makes me happier than hearing that one person got good value out of my videos and the support I have gotten since starting this channel has been incredible. Very excited for the future of my channel!
Music:
Song: NOWË - Save Us (Vlog No Copyright Music)
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music.
Video Link: youtu.be/UelXiWfn4MY
Song: Ehrling - Mood (Vlog No Copyright Music)
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music.
Video Link: youtu.be/ZYTlTsAU218
Here's a video about my first month on YouTube! I'll go into details about my background, expectations vs reality and showing my YouTube Analytics for anyone out there thinking about starting a channel or growing as a small YouTuber like me! Feel free to follow me on instagram: @kikoga
For my background, I work as a civil engineer here in Hawaii and just wanted to share my story about things I went through in my life in the financial realm: buying a house, budgeting, and basic financial management. I'm not a millionaire, never filmed a YouTube video before, used a video editing software, didn't have a great camera, or even subscribed to any channels on YouTube. I just was always intrigued by YouTube and was excited to share my story mostly to help others not make the same mistakes I did starting out in the world after college, thus I became a part time YouTuber.
So I expected being a part time YouTuber to take some time but I didn't really realize how much time it would take. For me, I work roughly 12 hours per day during the week and a few hours on the weekend for my regular job, so I'm spending the other 4-5 hours of each day and all my weekends trying to film, edit, write scripts, and research for my videos. I'm probably easily putting in 20-30 hours per week on top of my job trying to be a small YouTuber. Granted a lot of this is self inflicted since I am just starting out, and I want to make sure my videos aren't trash so I may take a little more time than most.
I also expected that I wouldn't get caught up in the analytics of YouTube but I did. So I'm right there with everyone else tracking views, looking at watch time, and yes, comparing myself to other channels and trying to figure out what they're doing to grow. So it can be helpful to do these things, but also if it starts to consume you it can become discouraging and in the past week or so I've shifted my focus to just posting two good videos per week. Forget the views, forget the subs, just make two good videos per week for a year and see where I am at. It takes off added stress and especially I don't want my part time YouTube venture to negatively affect my current job. I was there too watching all the videos about how to grow your channel, how to get your first 100 subscribers, how to get your first 1000 subscribers, how to grow on youtube in 2021, how to get more views etc.
I expected that if I followed the best practices of YouTube: SEO, consistent posting, commenting on other channels, good thumbnails, jumping on trending topics etc I would get easy growth really fast. And in reality, I think that it's good to have those things, but my growth in my first month was more from me just starting the channel and my friends and family supporting. In the long run, I think these things are good, but I thought that knowing all these things before I started would give me a good push, I haven't seen it yet, but hopefully in due time.
Here's the things I was taught through programs and other YouTubers about growth. SEO is search engine optimization meaning that your videos need to be searchable for YouTube to know how to push it. This means your title, tags, and description need to have the same keywords in it. Starting out you need to be more specific and targeted on your keyword because you can't compete with the larger channels on broader topics. You want your video to rank on the first page of whatever relatively commonly searched term you are going for. Posting multiple times a week and videos 10 min and longer help with growth because YouTube pushes channels that constantly bring an audience and the longer you keep your viewers on YouTube the better. Jumping on trending topics can accelerate your growth, and when you get that one video that pushes you to a different tier of views, you need to make more videos about that topic to keep the momentum going.
I expected that a lot of people had started making YouTube channels, but I definitely underestimated the amount of people around the world starting especially in my financial niche. It is really awesome to see so many people putting out different types of content, but it also just shows too how much competition is out there and how you need your videos to stand out amongst the millions out there.
I expected YouTube to be fun and in reality it really is! Though its more time consuming than I thought, I really enjoy the process and I love providing value to others. Nothing makes me happier than hearing that one person got good value out of my videos and the support I have gotten since starting this channel has been incredible. Very excited for the future of my channel!
Music:
Song: NOWË - Save Us (Vlog No Copyright Music)
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music.
Video Link: youtu.be/UelXiWfn4MY
Song: Ehrling - Mood (Vlog No Copyright Music)
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music.
Video Link: youtu.be/ZYTlTsAU218
