Lauren Bateman’s YouTube video “The Top 6 Reasons YouTubers Quit Too Early” is a practical guide for new creators explaining common mistakes that cause early quitting and how to avoid them. Bateman lists six core errors: (1) expecting overnight success (YouTube is a long-term game; traction often appears after ~2–3 years), (2) launching with only one video instead of a small playlist (she recommends 5–10 videos/playlist), (3) focusing on money instead of helping viewers, (4) lacking a strong personal "why" (she cites personal freedom and a story of a veteran whose life was helped), (5) having an unfocused channel (too many topics), and (6) outsourcing too late—especially editing. Practical tips include producing 40–50 videos so YouTube can learn the channel, creating playlists that link videos, prioritizing value/help over short-term revenue, listing passions to find focus, and outsourcing editing early (use VAs on platforms like Upwork). The video ends with a call-to-action to watch a five-year breakdown video she made.
Questions this video answers
About two to three years (she said many creators see traction around the 2–2.5 year mark).
About 40 to 50 videos.
Create a playlist of 5–10 videos (top questions about your topic).
About $700 (approximate).
About $10,000 (approximate).
Chapters
Did you know that most YouTubers will quit within their first year of starting a channel? So in this video I'm going to go over some of the top mistakes YouTubers make in hopes that you will learn from those mistakes and continue on with your YouTube journey and be successful.
Mistake number one is that expectations are just too high. YouTube is not an overnight success, it is a long term game. Most of the YouTubers in my position that have, you know, over 200,000 subscribers, I've talked to a lot of them and they said, you know, usually for them it's that two to three year range. Something happens around the two, two and a half year mark where all of a sudden you start gaining enough traction and that snowball effect starts taking off. But if you think you're going to upload one, two or three videos and be wildly successful on YouTube, chances are you are going to fail. So when you are starting a channel and have in mind that it's going to be a process, it takes 40 to 50 videos for YouTube to even figure out what your channel's about. So it's a long term play, it's a long term strategy, and if you go into it knowing that it's going to take time, you'll be less likely to quit. Mistake number two is that a lot of people, they're so excited about starting their YouTube channel, they do their first video, they throw it up there, they upload it and they're like, everyone you know, tell their friends, their family, everyone they're posting on social media, go check out my new YouTube channel. And then they go watch the video. But there's nothing else for them to do on the channel. It's basically like a dead channel with one video. So what I recommend people do is take the top five to 10 questions that you get asked about your topic. So say for example, I'm a guitar teacher. What are the questions I get asked all the time? Lauren? Should I play an acoustic or an electric? What's the best guitar for a beginner to play? What kind of guitar pick should I use? How do I even hold the pick? All right, so if you are a service provider like me, you know, you're doing fitness, I'm doing guitar lessons. If you're a service provider, there's usually those top questions that you get asked constantly, non stop. Put them into video format, create a playlist of five to 10 videos, all right, Upload them and when you're recording, you know what you're going to be recording. So when you do video one at the end of video one, you're going to say, hey, if you really like this, you found this information useful. Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how to do this, or I'm going to answer this question. Go watch this video next. All right, now what you're doing, instead of being like, great, I have a video, you're actually already starting to promote your other content, which to YouTube. When YouTube sees, you know, if you send over a bunch of people to a video and you get 50 people to a video, and then it sees 20 of those videos, went and clicked and watched another video, that's a great signal to send to YouTube. So that's a big mistake a lot of YouTubers make. They're so excited about getting their channel started, and I understand it, but they start promoting the channel before there's even real content on there. So don't do those five, six, seven questions. Get them on there, create a playlist and then be like, hey, guys, go watch these videos. I did. They're awesome. Mistake number three, and I almost fell for this is you focus on the money versus helping people. Now, if you're a service provider like me, okay, I'm a guitar teacher. Like I said, you're in the service industry. So your job is to help people reach their goals, okay? And by helping people reach their goals, they will want to help you reach your goals whether they are doing it actively or not. What do I mean by that? Say you help someone through your YouTube channel and they never buy anything from you, but because you help them, the law of reciprocity, they want to help you. They go, then tell five other people and three of those people buy something from you. That's what it is. It's helping people. Because when you help people reach their goals, the money will come, I promise you, okay? I promise that that money will. Will eventually come if you help people reach their goals. So don't focus so much on the money in the beginning, because it's just not going to be there. The first year on YouTube, I think I made like 700 bucks. It wasn't a lot of money. And then the second year, I think I made 10,000, which still is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. So the money's just not going to be there in the beginning. So focus on helping people. Which brings me to stake number five is that people usually don't have a good enough. Why? Why am I doing this in the first place? Like, why do I constantly keep making new content, editing video Throwing them up on YouTube to have 10 people watch it. Okay, why do I keep doing this? And for me it's that long term goal. All right, so there is a personal goal and then I'll share another story with you. There's that personal goal of like, I want to have financial freedom and I want to have freedom of time so that I can leave my office, I can go to a foreign country for a month and then I can come back and get back to work. All right. Last year I went to Iceland, my wife and I went to Iceland and then we went to the Grand Canyon. In a few months we're gonna go be going to Scotland for a few weeks. Okay. To be able to get up, leave my home, go to a foreign country for a few weeks and not have to worry about my finances or what's going on here is absolutely amazing. And I knew that was the why I was fighting for. That's why I started YouTube because I needed more flexibility in my time that I couldn't teaching private music lessons. YouTube would provide me the flexibility I needed. So focus on that long term. Why? And I also want to tell you a quick story about an email I got. This was in kind of like in the middle of COVID and when I was, you know, kind of in that period of like, oh, YouTube sucks and doing all this work and like nothing's happening. And you know, I got an email from someone and I believe he was a veteran, he had PTSD and he found my YouTube channel and he was really, really going through a bad depression to the point where he was like, I thought I was just going to say goodbye. I was ready to say goodby goodbye to the world. And he's like, I found your YouTube channel. I started playing guitar during COVID and you actually saved my life. And it's like, holy crap. If that's not an awesome why? That was really the wake up call for me. It was like, holy shit, I'm actually helping people. Like I didn't think a guitar ch like who? I wasn't coming in doing this expecting that I was going to save the world, but I saved this guy's life. And there are probably a bunch of other people who never emailed me, but that I helped a lot. And you start realizing that, yeah, maybe I only get 20 videos. Videos, 20 views on my video, but I helped 20 people. And that's where I changed my perspective. And I'm like, alright, so my videos are only getting like 300, 400 views. You know what? I helped 400 people. And if I helped 400 people, that's more people than I could help doing private lessons one on one. So I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna keep helping those four or five hundred people. And eventually grew into helping over, you know, 200,000 people. Millions of people. I have videos with millions of views on them. So you gotta start somewhere, but keep a good focus on that. Why? And it'll help get you through those dark periods. Huge mistake number five. Your channel is, like, all over the place. All right, I've worked with a lot of people over the years, and they're like, well, what's your channel on? All right, tell me about your channel. Well, I started doing real estate, and then I started, like, reviewing camera equipment. And now I have a travel blog. But I really like food, too. So I started incorporating some of my favorite meals. And it's like YouTube. I have no clue what your channel's about. YouTube definitely has no clue what your channel's about. And this is something a lot of new YouTubers focus, like, suffer from, is that there's. There is no focus. There is no focus. And a little exercise I do with people, I'm like, listen, just grab a piece of paper. If this is you, grab a piece of paper, write down all the things you love, all the things that you're really, really passionate about. Because I truly believe on YouTube you have to do something you're passionate about or you're going to be forcing, it's going to be forced, it's not going to be fun for you. So it has to be something you're passionate about, something that you could talk about all day, all night, and never get sick and tired of. All right, so write those things down. Maybe you got two, three, four, five things, and then say, okay, which of these Do I have enough knowledge that I feel like I could help someone? Because on YouTube, like I was just saying, it's that law of reciprocity. If you help someone, they want to help you. They want to share you out, share your brand, word of mouth. So focus on what do you love the most? And then make as much content around that passion. The more focused you can be, the better. Because the sooner YouTube's going to figure out what your channel's about, and the sooner YouTube is going to be able to serve your content to a specific audience. And that's when the magic really happens. Mistake number six, and this one, I think is a nail in the coffin for a lot of people, is you outsource way too late, especially Editing. I have so many YouTubers who quit because they're like this editing. It takes me hours to edit my video. And it's like, stop doing so much editing or outsource it. Okay? In the beginning when I started, I do a take. I'd do a 15 minute take, and that was it. That was the video. I never edited any of my videos because one, I didn't care if it was perfect. Very blessed that I have a personality, that I really don't give a shit what other people think. I'd rather get it done. I'm not about perfection at all. And I am very. I understand. I'm very blessed in that manner. But do a video, leave the mistakes in it. Makes you human, all right? You are a human interacting with other humans. It makes you human. Leave in the mistakes. Okay, stop editing so much. Just get the cut in the beginning, cut in the end. Export the video, upload it, okay? Throw a couple pictures on a couple diagrams once you have enough money. Because I know for a lot of people, they don't outsource because they're not making any money. But once you do get money, outsource as soon as possible. I waited too long to outsource myself and I did actually like editing my business coach in 2020. I've been editing my own videos for three years at this point. He's like, what the hell are you doing? And I was like, well, I actually kind of enjoy it. And he's like, no. He's like, you are done editing. He's like, you're hiring a virtual assistant. I'm gonna hook you up the VA and they're gonna edit the videos for you. He's like, you are not an editor. He's like, you are a content creator. Your job is to create the content and you're give it to someone else to edit. And it was a real shift in mindset for me because I was like. It was the first time that I was like, oh, okay, I don't have to spend all these hours editing these videos and doing all these diagrams and stuff. I was like, holy crap. It just freed up so much of my time to actually focus on researching the content, learning about YouTube, building my brand, interacting with my community. So I was able to spend my time in more valuable ways to grow my brand and grow my business. So as soon as possible, as soon as possible, outsource. And it's not as expensive as you think you can outsource on a platform like Upwork, find a VA in the Philippines or find a VA in India, you can pay people five to $10 an hour to edit videos for you. Imagine all the time you would save. And if you reinvested that into making more content, imagine how much faster your channel would grow. The bottom line is there is room on YouTube for everyone. All right? And if you've only uploaded a handful of videos, keep going. But if you really want to know how long this journey can take, go watch this video over here. I did a five year breakdown. What I was getting for subs, how much money I was making, how many views I was getting. Five years of my YouTube journey, step by step. Go watch that video right now.
