First Ever Videos On Completely New Channels
(You may notice the low Estimated Revenue. As these are all examples of the first video on a brand-new channel; the channel's weren't monetised until late in the video's trajectory)
What Is Your Unique Advantage?
The world of YouTube is not too distant from regular everyday life.
People have advantages in certain aspects of life which other people don’t have.
Everyone has different unfair advantages based on factors both within and out of their control.
It's no secret that people trialing for a basketball team are at an advantage if they are tall (in basketball terms - anything over 6 feet 6 inches). To any basketball coach, that is already an unfair advantage that certain players have even before they’ve bounced the ball.
Their expectations for that player have already been elevated over shorter players. The shorter players, therefore, have more work to do to impress than taller ones.
- It takes money to make money. If you have a lot of money to be able to put into your channel - then that can become a powerful advantage.
- However, resources are not just limited to money. This could be anything which you currently have - which others do not.
- Potentially you have contacts which could be leveraged to make videos that others cannot.
- Simply being able to put more time and effort into creating a certain style of content - in a less sophisticated market - can give you a strong advantage
Examples Of Resource Advantages
- Money
- Time
- Contacts
- Team
- Opportunities
- Data
- Technology
- Reputation
- Intellectual Property
- …
MrBeast's Claim
MrBeast claims that if he began from scratch - he would get to 50M subscribers in a couple months. No other YouTube creator has done that before - so why is MrBeast so confident?
That is the power of having specific-knowledge.
MrBeast has made countless mistakes to get where he is.
On his main-channel alone - he has made over 800 videos. Each one is a learning-point.
His claim is that if he knew what he knew now - everything would be different.
But - that’s YouTube specific knowledge. There’s also another class of knowledge which can be critical.
Find Your Specific Knowledge
"Something you didn’t even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. Your mother or your best friend growing up would know."Naval Ravikant
What can only you accomplish? What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?
More often than not, specific knowledge is not “a lot of knowledge about one particular thing.” Usually, it’s a knowledge stack: a deep understanding about how three or more things connect.
Ignore IKIGAI
Most YouTube guru's will introduce you to the IKIGAI framework at this point.
Forget it.
Why?
IKIGAI relies on finding your "reason for being" by reading the cross-section of four answers:
1) What you love
2) What the world needs
3) What you can be paid for
4) What you are good at
However, my issue first lies with points two.
"The internet enables any niche interest, as long as you’re the best at it to scale out. And the great news is because every human is different, everyone is the best at something. Being themselves."Naval Ravikant
Nowadays, we no longer need validation from the world regarding what to pursue. The internet has brought us a state of connectivity large enough to find an audience for anything.
Finally, I dislike the third point of the Ikigai model.
Don't factor in "What you can be paid for". There are a wide-variety of monetisation methods that can make ANY interest into a viable business.
First, focus on finding the audience.
If you have an audience, then point three is irrelevant.
