Rohan's blog

Pewdiepie is the biggest creator on YouTube. And he happened to become the biggest creator in over 10 years. But he is not one of the OGs. Meaning he’s not the one who started his YouTube channel when YouTube was nascent in the beginning, and you could have easily been over the internet by doing anything literally.

If you look at some of the old YouTube creators, you would see the content they made was not very deep or very funny. Or very out of the box. But it was just the content that we had. They were the ones only making content. So if you had to watch something online on YouTube, you must watch them. And if a lot of people watched them, they were famous, but slowly and behold, many people started creating on YouTube. And even YouTube started encouraging everyone to create on the internet. Because the more people create, the more people they will bring, the more voices they will bring: more diversity, more numbers and eventually more revenue for YouTube.

PewDiePie started almost a decade after the beginning of YouTube. So it was very heavy competition. But what made PewDiePie the number one was his consistency; he identified a growing niche: the gaming community. You can stream yourself playing, make silly faces, and make some commentary. And there were a handful of channels doing that. And if you had a personality to back it up, you would be successful.

But what made him successful was his consistency in posting a video, sometimes multiple videos every day. If you look at his 10-year journey, you will see that he has posted daily. So that means 365 days multiply by 10, and that is equal to 3650 videos. That is a ridiculous amount of videos and consistency to keep it up. You can give the benefit of the doubt that PewDiePie is not creating content requiring too much production value. Too much screenwriting, too many actors and editing and so on. Yes. But initially, he was doing all of this himself. And it could have easily consumed maybe 10 hours of his time daily to keep up with the consistency – playing the games, creating highlights, editing, and uploading the content. Sometimes it takes a lot more if you have a bad internet speed, at least in the beginning.

The thing is, it’s not only about consistency. There are many ways to reach the top. You can see the growth of Mr Beast, who started maybe around the time of Pewdiepie, maybe before him, but he was not nearly as successful. His videos were not even breaking 1000 views for many years. And then he started making videos with s started generating views. And now, after many years, he’s about to pass PewDiePie in subscribers growth, but his approach is totally different. He uploads only four videos a month, which are insane budgets, hundreds of people time consuming a lot of things. So which approach should you choose?

The thing is, you have to decide for yourself what you want to do. But whatever it is, you have to put a deadline on it. And within the deadline, you have to make whatever video you’re putting the best possible video you’re putting. It should not be half-baked; it should not be rushed. Yes, you can have a deadline. You can choose how many videos you want to put. Maybe you want to put one video every day. Maybe you want to put one video every month or maybe one every year, but for the rest of the day. You have to keep working on that video.

You have to have a deadline. And you have to keep working. You can’t just like enjoy six months and then work on six months and then make a video. If you’re going to do that, then post two videos in a year. Because that’s how you will ensure that you’re putting a few very good content on the internet.

But before all of this, before everything. There’s one particular thing you have to make sure that the content you’re posting – the topic has to be something people are actively searching for. It has to be something people are engaging, and that has to be similar kinds of content already on the internet. That means there is a market because creating demand is quite difficult. But if you, as an individual creator, want to capture attention on any platform like YouTube, make sure the content you’re creating is already something people crave. And you give them the best possible thing, and they will take it. It might take some time for discovery. It might take some time for one of our videos to go viral. But if you keep doing it, it will go viral.

If you’re going to make 100 videos –  the best videos every week, keep on putting it every two years to produce videos consistently, employing and consistently learning and doing all of it. One of them might go well. What happens when something goes viral? They will look at other videos. So in the game of YouTube, put your best content out there. Something people already craving for, and remember that you will go viral. Take enough time frame – maximum five years or whatever your patience is. When the video goes wider, do you have something to capture their attention to make them go crazy over you and watch you repeatedly?

But you can also revise the strategies as you grow up because once you have the attention of some people and in such a way that you can have the revenue, you can change the strategy as and whenever you like. For example, PewDiePie now does not post daily content; he posts weekly or biweekly. And he can afford to do that now because he has a consistent audience. Once you have an audience, you can change up and choose the direction you’re going – you can have a laid-back attitude, a more in-depth attitude, whatever you like, whatever your goals are.

But if your goal is to first be a successful YouTuber, you need to find a strategy and stick to it for long enough to make it work. Because surely if I keep at it, it will work. So go ahead and create something awesome, beautiful, worthwhile, something people already paying for, giving it 100 shots. Take two years, three years, five years, whatever how many years you like, just do it and get yourself a successful YouTube channel.