In this instructional video, Dan from millennialmotivator.ca walks beginners through three essential steps to launch a successful YouTube channel, plus a bonus tip. He begins by sharing his own modest experience—two months of effort yielding 80,000 views and 1,300 subscribers—to establish credibility. The first step emphasizes abandoning the habit of copying other creators and instead focusing on a genuine, long‑term passion or niche that can sustain regular content creation. The second step covers building a complete brand: choosing a channel name, designing a logo, crafting a concise description, and mapping out a network of related social‑media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Dan recommends resources such as Roberto Blake’s Awesome Creator Academy for efficient setup. The third step advises constructing a content calendar, ideally planning at least 30 video ideas (roughly two‑and‑a‑half months of content at a three‑times‑weekly posting schedule) to reduce stress, test idea viability, and ensure consistency. As a bonus, he suggests testing video concepts on other platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook Live, etc.) to gauge audience interest before fully launching the channel. Throughout, Dan maintains a motivational, practical tone, encouraging viewers to take actionable steps, share the video, and comment on what they think is necessary for a successful channel.
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So you think you want to start a YouTube channel, but you're not sure where to get started. No problem, I'm going to help you out. Today we're going to take a look at 3 simple things that you've got to do if you're looking to start a YouTube channel today. Let's go! Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dan from millennialmotivator.ca. Helping you learn how to create, engage, and inspire. If you're new to the channel, click that subscribe button down there and the little bell. You'll get a notification when I go live next. I put out videos here Monday through Saturday, helping you learn how to grow a business online, either through marketing, digital stuff, websites, ecommerce, you name it. If you're online and you want to do a business, this is the place for you. But today what we're looking at is how do you start a YouTube channel? YouTube has been a big thing on the internet. A lot of people seeing some celebrity come out of it. A lot of people seeing some successful businesses come out of it. So I really wanted to help you guys take a look at this today, figure out how you get started on YouTube, and what are some of the simple things that you can have in place before you get started to make sure that you have a bit more success on your channel. Now, obvious disclaimer, I am not a 1 million subscriber channel, 250,000 person subscriber channel. I'm just a regular guy like you starting off on YouTube. I've been at this for just a little bit over 2 months, but in that 2-month period, I have almost 80,000 views on the channel. I do have 1,300 subs. I built a network around it, and I've started to see some initial sponsorships and growth from the channel. So if that sounds like a good start for you and you want to hear how I kind of went about creating the channel, stick around. Check out these tips and see if they can't help you get started on your YouTube channel today. Let's go! Okay, so first up guys, this is one that I've got to put out there because it's got to be aired out. Stop looking at other people's channels. Now for anybody that's here on YouTube, I know that you're watching this channel and you have your favorite channels, whether it's gaming or music or fashion or tech or whatever it is. You've got your favorite channels on this platform for sure, But here's the reality: if you try to copycat another channel, all that's gonna come out of this is frustration because you can't do what they do. You're not them. It's gonna come with a whole lot of headaches where you try to mimic what they're doing and copycat to get success, and it's gonna lack originality and a genuine commitment from the audience because they know— let's take for example a big YouTuber like PewDiePie. If you try to mimic PewDiePie in your channel, unfortunately what's going to happen is people will go, ah, he's like PewDiePie, but I could just go watch PewDiePie. Or if you're somebody like me and say I just get on here and I mimic somebody like Gary Vee, right? If I'm mimicking Gary Vee, the reality is, and I'm going to be honest about this, if I was just to get on here and straight up mimic Gary Vee, I would probably want to go watch Gary Vee myself. That's just the honest opinion on it. So forget looking at other channels. It's the first big step in creating your YouTube channel, guys. Forget what other people are doing. Get it out of your mind. Forget the other channels that are out there. It's not about them. It's about you. Okay guys, that's the first big one. Forget everybody else. You've got to get ready and get focused on you. Now the caveat to that of course is you need to know you. So I'm going to merge these 2 into one. Forget what everybody else is doing and focus on what you want to do, okay? This isn't what you think you should do. Don't target trends, create ideas based off of something you see on the internet that you think will be trendy and you don't have a passion for. You have to make sure that just like Casey Neistats and the Logans and Roberto Blakes and Tim Schmoyer, they're doing the things that they love to do. I myself am doing what I love to do on my channel. You have to make sure that you're doing what you love to do on your channel, okay? So find something you're passionate about that you honestly think that you can be on a YouTube video talking about regularly for a year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. It's all about the long ball game, and if you're not passionate about it, it's not something you love to do, it's not gonna last. So sit down, put on the blinkers, get rid of it— What? everybody else is doing. Focus on what you love and write it down. What are some ideas of things that you love that you could do a YouTube channel on? Okay, step 2. Okay, the next step, guys, is you're gonna want to make sure that your channel has a brand. And this one takes a little bit longer than the first step. The first step is as simple as you grab yourself a notebook, you grab yourself a pen, you write down some ideas of things that you love, and that shouldn't be too hard. I love guitar, I love my music, I love my comics, I love business, I love entrepreneurs. These are really simple things to do, to write down these ideas and get ready to roll with them. Now, the next hard part though is how do I create a name, a brand, and a label around it, okay? And this is where a large portion of your time in creating your channel is going to come, okay? Now, in creating a brand, what I'm talking about is how are you going to create a logo, a name, a concept, And a network around it. So logo, name, concept, network. Those are the things that you're looking at. If you guys are writing it down on your notebooks or your Post-its— normally I've got Post-its there, there— Post-its kicking around, write these things down, okay? Name, network, logo, content. Have these things planned out in your mind, okay? Make sure that you take the time to figure this out because as you build a channel, as you do your technical side— so you register with YouTube, you get your email in there— it's gonna ask you for things like banners, descriptions, social networks that you can plug into the channel. You want to make sure that that's all in your plan and you've got that laid out. So a simple process here is draw yourself a map. Here's my YouTube channel, and I want it to have a Facebook, a Twitter, an Instagram, and a Tumblr account. Great, there's my network. I've got that built. For the logo, I want it to be, I want it to be comic book related, so I'll call it Nerd currency, and I will create this fun little Canadian logo with a maple leaf that looks like a bat signal. That'll be it. And I'm giving you an idea that I've already done in the past, guys, not on YouTube but elsewhere. But reality, that's what it looks like. What's the name of the channel? What's it about? Can you create a logo for it and have a description about what you're about, what you want to do, so that when you go to fill out all that information on YouTube, you can fill out the entire thing start to finish? It's gonna be a huge key to success, guys, to have it set up properly from start to finish. Now, if you're looking for some resources on how to set up the channel specifically, I highly, highly recommend Roberto Blake's Awesome Creator Academy. It will save you hours and hours and hours of setup time. I am not sponsored by Roberto Blake in any way. I know the guy, I know what he does, he's an amazing guy, he's created a powerful tool for anybody looking to start a YouTube channel. I'm I highly recommend you go check it out. I'll put the link down in the comments below, okay? But that's it. Make sure that you've got all your ducks in a row. You started off, you got your idea, this is the channel I wanna build. Create the name, create the logo, create the description, and then have a clear picture of how that network is gonna span out into your channel. Now, last but not least, let's get into the last thing you have to do before you create your YouTube channel. Okay guys, last tip is your content creation calendar. For some people, they just do it on the fly. I know for me, I'm one of those people that's guilty of it, but it's not a best practice for your channels. For me, I see a lot of communication from my other social networks. I can pull from my job, I can pull from my consulting, I can pull from all kinds of different things to get ideas for my videos. But not every niche, not every channel will have that opportunity. So it is crucial, crucial that you lay down at least a 30-video roadmap when you're getting started. Why do I say 30 videos? 30 videos, for the most part, if you're considering an average YouTube channel, you're gonna be posting 3 times a week. So that's gonna give you 10 weeks, 2 and a half months of content that you've got planned out and you're creating for. All right, to know that you've got 2 and a half months of ideas locked down and ready to go for your YouTube channel, it's gonna alleviate a lot of stress and a lot of tension down the road. Okay, I I do recommend you have at least 2 months worth of content planned out. And while this isn't something that I do because I am putting these videos on the fly daily, if I was creating a best practice and I could go back and tell myself how to start this channel, I would probably encourage myself to do at least 30 videos worth of planning, okay? For you, whether you're posting daily like I am probably isn't gonna happen. It's probably gonna be more likely to be 3 times a week. If not less. So having 30 videos planned out is a great way to go. It's a great success factor. And when you have that there, it'll also challenge you to see if the idea has merit, right? If you create a video that's all about, I'm a huge fan of Budweiser headsets, so I'm going to create a channel on that. You create your brand, you create your logo, and it's you with a picture of you wearing these headsets, right? That, that's you. That, that's your channel. The reality is when you sit down to make 30 video titles based off of this headset, maybe you could do it. Maybe you're better at that than I am because you have a passion for them, but the reality is if you can't create 30 titles on the topic, chances are you need to revisit the first step and find a new idea. The ability to create a great list of relevant content is going to be so vital for you to understand whether or not there's actual value to your channel. All right, guys? Now, I know I said 3 simple things, but I always like to give you guys a little bit of a bonus, so stick around, here it comes, here's the bonus. The bonus is this, guys, it's test the waters. For the most part, everybody's got one of these bad boys, you've got your smartphone, okay? Take your smartphone and go hit up your other social networks. Most other social networks allow for video in some way. Okay, we're not talking in the same way as YouTube, but you've got Facebook Live, you can put video up onto Twitter now, you've got LinkedIn that you can put video up on, Snapchat clearly is a video platform, Instagram has video options available. Test the waters, throw up some videos of your content as you're planning to put it up, as you're building that network we suggested, and see if the community resonates. See if you can get feedback, see if people like what you're doing, see if people are engaged, and you can actually use that method to build as a teaser into your channel grand opening, right? So picture you doing Instagram videos that are teasers for a week and seeing zero engagement on it— no likes, no comments, no shares, nobody's interested. This is probably a good sign that you need to go back to the drawing board. Whereas you put up 2 or 3 videos on Instagram for a week showcasing the upcoming channel and it gets tons of likes or comments and people are excited about it— great! That's a good indicator that you want to get going on it. Okay, so you see how that works, right? Use it, use the other networks that are out there with light video teasers to see if people are interested in the content and the theme of the channel that you've chosen. If it looks like there's attention on it, great, run with it. If it looks like everybody's bored to tears and doesn't want to see it, skip it, move on to something else. All right guys, that is it for For today, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for watching. As always, I appreciate all of you that have taken the time to watch this. Question of the day, it'll be down in the comments below, but you can answer it. It's, what do you think is necessary to start a successful YouTube channel? What are some of the things that you would recommend to anybody that's looking? Let me know down in the comments below. I'd love to see what your guys' thoughts are. And if you think this video could be helpful to anybody that you know that's looking to get started on YouTube, Go ahead and share it out. I would appreciate it. It would do a lot to help grow this channel. Thank you so much for watching, and I will catch you tomorrow with another video. See you then. Bye.
