Ty: 17% of all the videos that I’ve posted account for 80% of my views. 

Spencer: You and your personality can like take it in a different angle. 

Ty: When I think about how much money I’ve made from YouTube, a huge chunk of that has been reinvested back into the business. 

Spencer: The big creators have been doing it for a really long time. 

Ty: Four out of five videos that we post on our channels are not going to move the needle. But it’s that fifth video that has a shot. 

Spencer: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Creators Uncut. Thanks for joining us. Always excited for a new episode. We’ve got a great guest for you today. His name is Ty Myers. And he’s on YouTube, but he’s not to be confused with the singer-songwriter, Ty Myers. Um, they’ve got the same name. But Ty, thanks for being on the show. 

Ty: Yeah, thanks so much, Spencer. It’s good to be with you. Uh, appreciate the opportunity. 

Spencer: Yeah, definitely. So, like always, we want to get to know you a little bit first. So, why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what your YouTube channel is about? Yeah. 

Ty: So my name’s Ty. I’m out of Denver, Colorado. I uh I got started on YouTube almost two years ago now at this point. And uh I it’s a bit meta. I help other people get started on YouTube. And so um, yeah, there’s a lot of people out there who want to get on YouTube and maybe they’re struggling to get across that starting line. And I figured why not try to help them out because it’s something I’ve done fairly recently myself. So that’s what I’ve been up to for the last two years. 

So my my main audience and avatar are basically, I would call them like midlife folks, folks that are 40 plus who um maybe are like me and had a bit of a midlife crisis and decided to do something crazy and put themselves on the internet on video. And so I just offer my services to be a helping hand and a co-pilot on their new a new adventure that they’re embarking on. 

Spencer: Awesome, awesome. I think that’s one of the reasons we were excited to have you as a guest, is you know, our our podcast is kind of about like advice on how to do YouTube. So you’re like the perfect expert for that. 

Yeah. Um so I don’t know if I want to ask you specifically what your mid-life crisis was, but uh how did you get into starting like how did you get into the YouTube industry? 

Ty: It was um, I think ever since COVID, I had just had my eye on it. I just remember watching videos back then of folks kind of talking about YouTube monetization. 

And at that point, I think a lot of people were watching a lot of YouTube. And so I kind of got the bug, but I didn’t do anything with it. I never took it seriously. I mean, it wasn’t until summer of 2024, and I was uh I was in my job for gosh, I think six years in my in my previous role, but with my company for almost 20 years. And I was like, you know what? 

There’s no better time right than right now if I’m gonna do something crazy like this. And so I was just getting a bit bored, you know, work was a little monotonous. Uh it’s kind of like the same day over and over again, and it was comfortable and it was a great job. 

And I I really do miss the people there, but I just thought, could I do this for another 20 years? And um the answer was probably no. So I said, you know what, why not take a risk? I had saved up some money from being in that job, and I had about a 12 to 18 month runway. Whereas if I quit with no income, it could be I could kind of support myself in the interim while I try to figure out how to make money from YouTube. And so um, yeah, four months into starting my channel, I decided to put in my two weeks. And that was the beginning of me doing YouTube full time. And I wasn’t making any money back then. 

I was making zero dollars a month. But I I just had this belief, I had this conviction that it could be done, and I had seen other people do it, people who were a little bit ahead of me on their YouTube journey. And so what I would come to learn is that I mean, if you think about right now where we are with technology and solo entrepreneurship and just like the low barrier to entry with content and online marketing, it’s it right now is the easiest time to get started in doing something like this. Two years ago, still relatively easy, but I just thought it would be worth the gamble. And if things didn’t work out, I you know, I didn’t burn a bridge with my old company. I could certainly try to get rehired and maybe get my old job back or some version of it. But um, I just thought it might be nice to to bet on myself and work with my own two hands and try to be my own boss and see how far that can take me. 

Spencer: That’s awesome. That’s a great story. So uh a couple questions from that. Um first, was your previous job related to creating content at all, or was it like a complete 180 career change? 

Ty: It was a complete 180. It had nothing to do with um nothing to do with writing, video, content, marketing. I will say though, it was a sales job. I was uh I was basically an associate director leading a technical sales team for um a basically a wireless carrier here in the US. And um, so I was on sales calls with clients. I did coaching for my direct reports. So the business model is a little similar where I do sales calls with prospects and I I essentially coach my clients. So there’s some overlap and similarities, and I would say there’s a little bit of overlap with the tool usage as well. Doing everything virtually, like here we are using a virtual online platform for two-way communication, Google Meet, Zoom, very familiar, all the Google workspace products, different productivity tools coming from that job do have a little bit of overlap. I I think on the YouTube side. So maybe that was a bit of an advantage that I had, but I didn’t know anything about being on camera or how to record or lighting or scripting or YouTube psychology in general. So it was all brand new to me back then. 

Spencer: Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, that’s uh I think that makes it all the more impressive that you just like dove right into YouTube. Um, my other question was, and I don’t know if you can answer this, but you mentioned, you know, like there were you had seen people previously or ahead of you like start YouTube channels. Um was there anyone specific that like really influenced you to start YouTube? Like, why did you decide, you know, okay, so you were making a career change. Why did you decide YouTube and not to become like an electrician or or something like that? Why why specifically YouTube? 

Ty: Well, I think I think it’s um one, you can kind of do it from home. You do it with whatever tools, resources you have. And um for most people, you’re just getting started with your like your smartphone. 

So yeah, just like really low barrier to entry, which was appealing. Design software, editing software, all that stuff you can just get on your computer. So you really just need your computer, and that’s it to get started. Uh other professions probably require, you know, either travel or other tools or just like other disciplines to learn. And I figured I could I could learn some things and then distill them and teach them back in videos. 

Like I used to do that in my old job, take complex information and try and like dumb it down for lack of a better term for a more broad audience. And I thought, why not try and do that in some form or fashion on YouTube? And back when I was like researching and getting ready to get going in the summer of 2024, I initially thought I was going to be making kind of like AI related content, like educational AI stuff. Oh, but as I was researching more and more about how to do YouTube, I came across the channels like like Think Media and BidIQ and like all the big guys in the YouTube growth space. And I remember joining Think Media back then, they had like this five-day workshop, and it was like two hours every day. 

It was free to join. And I was like, wow, this is really cool. Like I I’m everything’s connecting, like the like the dots are connecting. And I thought, why don’t I just try and teach YouTube? Like, but from this novice beginner midlife perspective. And I stumbled across creators like Alexa Saranoya and Rob the Maritimer, who at the time were doing very similar things. Uh Rob had just pivoted from being like a video editing Camtasia channel into how to get started on YouTube when you’re 40 plus. 

Alexa was doing the same thing, but she was brand new. And I was like, wow, these people are crushing. They got a really great message. 

The people are eating it up because apparently people need this kind of support and motivation. And I thought I could dip, I could tap into that. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. My, like I said, my avatars, like midlife folks, um, who who maybe they want to do something similar, right? They want to escape the nine to five. They want to avoid, you know, get out of the drudgery of being part of a corporate machine. Layoffs are, of course, a big concern now with AI. And so I think a lot of people are trying to think how can I take my own career in my own hands where I have the autonomy to make decisions, work for myself, and make my own money and do and do work with work on something that I’m genuinely passionate and interested in. So that was kind of the catalyst, is a handful of creators back then that kind of kicked me in the butt to get me going. Gotcha. 

Spencer: That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I’m always curious, you know, how people get into the YouTube industry. And that makes a lot of sense. And I think I want to add on to what you said, you know, a lot of people, like you said, you want to take control of their lives. Um, and you don’t have to do what you did specifically and and like do a complete 180 career change with YouTube. You can do it on the side. You don’t have to go like full time right away. Right. Um, which I think is is a pro of a YouTube channel. 

Ty: And that I would recommend. I don’t recommend people follow exactly what I did because there’s no guarantees, you know. Right. Yeah. Not everyone has the financial runway that I had. And so you’re kind of playing with fire if you quit prematurely. And so I think the prudent thing to do is do it on the side, make it viable, you know, figure out your business model. And when you’re comfortable with the amount of money you’re making over an extended period of time, then you make that decision if it makes sense to leave the nine to five. But for people who maybe are a little more reckless, who have a higher risk tolerance who have that financial runway, then you can do what I did. 

Spencer: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So your channel specifically is helping the midlife people create YouTube channels. And I kind of want to dive into that a little bit because I don’t think we’ve had anyone on the show with that specific niche. Um So from your experience working with these creators, um, is there I’m curious, is there like an advantage that they have over other creators? Yeah, I don’t know if you can answer that, but I think that was the first question that came to mind. 

Ty: I think there’s there’s pros and cons. I think when you’re when you’re let’s just say you’re 50 years old, you very likely have had a lot of life experience, which you can maybe translate into helping other people. Um or maybe you have a hobby or something you’ve worked on, like maybe you’re an artist or a musician that you’ve got 20 years in that discipline, and then you can teach that back, or maybe you have professional experience that’s that’s useful and valuable. So I mean, having been alive for longer means you just know more. You’re you have more wisdom, you have more knowledge, you have more mental assets that you can share with the world. 

That’s one benefit. Um the downside though is that people who are older tend to be more self-aware and maybe have I don’t want I don’t want to disparage younger folks. So if you’re you know Gen Z out there, don’t take this the wrong way. Um, but maybe I think older folks are more prone to shame and embarrassment, whereas younger people maybe don’t care as much. And so I have clients who are like deeply sophisticated, who’ve got 20 years experience in their field, and they’re like the masters of their universe in their real in their real life corporate environment, but you put them on the internet and all of a sudden they’re just like children who are, you know, they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re they’re scared and nervous. Just a whole different environment putting yourself out there like that. 

And so yeah, there’s there’s pros and cons to both, but I think there’s there’s genuine advantages, and of course there’s um, I think I looked this up like uh last year. There was uh 2024 to 2027, those three years, that three year span is the most amount of boomers are turning 65. So it’s like it’s like peak boomer, right? And then the majority, like 70% of 65-year-olds are either fully retired or partially retired, which basically means there are more mid-60s, you know, leaving the workforce than there ever were right now in this moment, and that means more passive consumption on streaming services and even more contribution. So we see more and more older people joining YouTube to share their life experience, and so um, I just think there’s a growing demographic there that is still yet to be met. 

Spencer: Gotcha, yeah. That that makes a lot of sense. Um, I’m curious with your clients. Do you I mean I mean, obviously you train them how to start a channel, but do you also like train them on other skills like how to talk to a camera or like I don’t know, come up with ideation, or do you just strictly handle like the YouTube like uploading and stuff like that, or is it kind of all encompassing? It’s the whole thing, yeah. 

Ty: Wherever, wherever I think I can be helpful, um, I don’t have it’s it’s almost like just wherever the client needs to be met, you know. Some people are very early stage and they haven’t even created their channel yet. They know what they want to talk about, but they haven’t quite put everything together and they haven’t made a video. So I’ve helped some folks get across that starting line. Other people will come to me with several years of experience on YouTube and several thousand subscribers. 

So um their needs are different, right? They they know what they’re doing, they’ve got their production system down, they just might need help on the monetization front or just a second set of eyes and ears to help ideate with, because oftentimes doing YouTube by yourself is very isolating and you don’t necessarily know if you’re on the right track, and it’s hard to get feedback. The only feedback you get are 35 views on a video, and you’re like, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. So yeah, it’s it’s nice to have a community or a mentor or a peer to work alongside. 

Spencer: Gotcha, yeah, that totally makes sense. From your experience, I mean you primarily work with midlife uh people, but do you think that there’s like an ideal age to start a YouTube channel? Or can anyone at any age start a YouTube channel? 

Ty: I I don’t know. I it’s a great question. I don’t really think there is an ideal age. I think um like a moment ago I mentioned the advantages that midlife or even older folks have. And you know, it’s funny, there was a uh a gentleman that I had become acquainted with very early on, uh late 2024. His name is Mike Bear, his channel is Old Me Living Better, and he started his YouTube channel at 80 years old. And that was his advantage because he’s got so much life experience and wisdom to share. And he he would talk about that, like that was part of his title, and that was attractive for other 50, 60, 70, 80 year olds, when they would see that title of an 80 year old starting a YouTube channel, they had to click. 

So he he used that to his advantage. Alternatively, there are, and I noticed this recently on YouTube, younger folks. I think I found this um this channel called Bridgebind. I think that’s the name of the channel. And I think it’s like this 23 year old kid who is live streaming, he doesn’t do long form, he just live streams for like six hours a day, and all he’s doing is live streaming him vibe coding an AI product that he’s selling. So he is literally building in real time publicly, and that’s his marketing engine. I mean, everything he’s building is like very early stage, but he’s getting a lot of good user feedback. He’s building a community, people are opting in with their credit cards, and he’s building, you know, a six-figure, possibly seven figure business at a very young age, just with a very ambitious idea and doing it publicly for the whole world to see. So if you have that kind of motivation and ambition as a 23-year-old, um, and you want to build something with technology, like there’s no better place than YouTube. 

Spencer: Yeah, definitely. I completely agree. I think anyone can start at any age, and even um kids can do it with the help of their parents. You know, I’ve seen this one channel. I think his dad runs it, but it’s this boy who does like DIY stuff, like mechanic stuff, or I think he lives on a farm, so they do a lot of like handiwork. But uh yeah, anyone can pretty much start a channel, and you know, to add on to what you said, I think the best time to start is is now. Yeah. 

Um, no matter what age you are, who you are. Um, you know, I kind of wish uh I started something more specifically, like during COVID. A lot of the people I’ve talked to on this show started during COVID and there was a big YouTube boom. 

Ty: But COVID was a good time to start because everyone was at home watching, but you know, I get the question all the time is YouTube too saturated, you know, what do I have that’s unique to say? 

Everyone’s already said it before. And I have a client who he he just started working with me like three months ago, and take this with a grain of salt. He is a complete anomaly, so this is not to be the expected experience for anyone listening. He’s over 50,000 subscribers in three months. 

Um from zero, again, with with no video background. Um he’s in the AI niche, which is blowing up, of course. He he talks about Claude and all the different Claude things, and Claude is had Anthropics had an amazing year. So there’s a ton of interest, and so it doesn’t matter, you know, where you want to play on YouTube, there’s going to be interest. Some niches greater than others. 

Um but the way people kind of stand out is just even if you are helping in a niche that many other people are already participating in, it’s your unique presentation, it’s your unique communication and it’s your unique perspective that really sets you aside. So I would tell people who feel fearful of jumping in because YouTube seems very crowded. It absolutely is, but there’s still a ton of demand. There’s still so many people who are logging in every day who are looking for help with something, and they want to hear it from a different voice. And so, you know, that’s in my view, enough reason to start if people are on the fence. 

Spencer: Yeah, definitely. I I agree. You know, a lot of people maybe hesitate, and you kind of mentioned one already that some people think YouTube is oversaturated. Is there another or are there other reasons that you’ve come across from your experience of people on why they don’t want to start a YouTube channel? 

Ty: I think there’s some folks who are maybe a bit fearful of the technology, like how to do it the right way. I think there’s a lot of perfectionism fears, um, getting everything right before you get started, which I completely understand where you’re come where people come from when they say that. But uh what I find more often than not is whatever the original plan was, no matter how dialed it is, it always changes and fairly quickly. So yeah, equipment, technology, like figuring out how to record, getting your audio good, getting the lighting good. 

It’s a lot to learn in a short period of time. And people don’t really want to put themselves out there unless they think, unless they’re at a certain like quality bar, right? That they’ve set for themselves. So that’s one thing. Um, and I just think people are in intuitively awkward on camera. You know, it takes a lot of time to get comfortable with it to um to just kind of get numb to the fact that you’re being recorded. I I’ve made a over 150 videos at this point. 

I would say like maybe a good like 30, 30, 40 videos. And then you kind of find your rhythm, and it’s like, okay, cool. Now I’m in a good production flow, and you kind of figure out like the best way to deliver. Gets a lot easier. But early on, I think there’s a lot of camera anxiety. And then there’s also this like, how do you even how do you even write a script? And how do you even like deliver it to the camera? Like, there’s just there’s several ways to do it, and it’s really hard to know what your preferences are unless you actually experiment with all of them. And that can be exhausting and time consuming and very frustrating for a lot of people. 

Spencer: Yeah, yeah. Back to the uh the awkwardness on camera. I have a lot of props for people who do like live streaming, for example, out in public. You know, I I feel like I have no issue talking just to a camera when I’m by myself. But if I have to do it in front of other people, that’s when I specifically feel awkward. So I have I give props to those who like do live streaming or you know, like restaurant reviews or those those types of content. 

Ty: So yeah, like filming out in public. I can never do it, I could never do it. It would be terrifying for me because I would totally lose my train of thought, and I’d be like, are they looking at me? 

Spencer: And it would just be so it’s definitely uh a skill that you have to learn, but you know, I think it pays off, and YouTube is such a creative platform, you know. Sorry, I keep jumping back, but back to the whole saturated thing, you know, because it’s so creative, you know, you and your personality can like take it in a different angle, different direction, depending on whatever niche it is, um, and come up with new ideas, even though it’s like the same topic. Yeah. Um, and that’s that’s what’s so great about YouTube. So yeah, 100%. 

Ty: There’s an infinite number of ways to skin the cat. 

Spencer: Yeah, exactly. So, Tai, um, I kind of want to dive more into I guess you personally and your your channel. You’ve had a lot of great advice for for the midlife people or older. But has there been a project or a moment through your YouTube career that like stuck out to you as like the most memorable? It could be like a video or a comment, or I don’t know if you’ve gone to any events that that stood out. Anything along those lines? 

Ty: No, I would love to go to some kind of YouTube event, like a VidCon or something like that. Not quite yet, but I think maybe the most memorable thing that’s happened on my YouTube channel is having having a video do exceptionally well that I felt was like the true catalyst for my channel growing. This was uh a video you’ve probably have come across from a thousand different channels where it’s like the how YouTube change uh what was it, how much YouTube paid me kind of videos, you know, like people get monetized and then they reveal how much they make. There’s just so much interest in YouTube monetization that people love those videos, myself included, and that’s kind of what got me hooked back during COVID. And so I made one video about how much YouTube paid me my first 90 days as a monetized creator, and that video just took off and it it grew my channel almost like overnight. And so that was probably the most memorable moment and sort of sort of showed me like, hey, there’s there’s some real momentum to be had here. 

And of course, once you get all these new eyeballs watching this video, then you start showing up in people’s home screens in suggested, and all of a sudden it feels like there’s a groundswell underneath the channel. So that was a really nice moment. That was the summer of last year. 

Another nice moment more on the business side of things was having joined a mentorship group last summer. So the former head of YouTube for Ali Abdal, his name is Tintin, he has a program called the 100k YouTuber. And I joined that last July, July of 2025. And back then I was I was the channel was growing because of that one viral video, but I was kind of struggling to get leads and to grow my coaching business and kind of figure out next steps on how to make more money and make it actually financially feasible. And um, literally within the first week of that program, he gave me some really great advice. And it sort of it sort of instilled in me the power of mentorship, coaching, relationships, and having people sort of help remove roadblocks, mental roadblocks, limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves. And um following his advice, I was I able to onboard a handful of new clients, which was like just this breakthrough for me back then. So um, yeah, I tell that story because like YouTube is multifaceted, right? It’s not just content, it’s business. 

Right, it’s it’s mental, it’s like mental resilience and toughness and how we perceive ourselves, our value, what we what we can provide to the market, how we price ourselves and how aggressive we are with um supporting people. And so that was a lesson that I’ll I’ll take with me forever, hopefully. But yeah, those are the two most memorable things that I’ve experienced so far. 

Spencer: I think those are great memorable moments. Thanks for sharing. Um, that kind of sparked another question in me. Do you like help your clients? You know, like is your goal to help them to monetize, or just to help them do whatever they want? Like I don’t know if that question makes sense, but yeah, it’s both. 

Ty: It’s whatever they want, truthfully. I have some clients who they don’t really care too much about monetization. They might be like doing it on the side or they’re retired, so they don’t necessarily need the money. It’s just something they want to do to build community or create legacy, you know, just uh scratch a creative itch that they have. Um, other folks are like, I want to make YouTube my full-time job. So they absolutely want to have their own business and they need help on the monetization side. So it’s uh it runs the full spectrum of people’s interests. Gotcha. 

Spencer: Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so I guess you mentioned um joining that group, um, and that guy gave you some really good advice. Would you recommend for people who are doing YouTube to join a group? Um, I don’t know if that group costs money, but do you feel like it was like beneficial enough to join the group or was that just like a for your specific circumstance? 

Ty: Yeah, it was probably unique to me. Um it was a paid mentorship. Um, okay. And you know, it’s a it was a pretty small well, it still is a pretty small cohort. It’s like a group, it’s a group program that teaches all about uh essentially like YouTube business models and how to scale to a hundred thousand dollars a year through YouTube. So that’s the kind of the core premise of the program. And of course, you pay to get in because you’re getting access to someone who’s done the thing and they have all of this course material. And so also you’re gaining access to a group of peers as well, other people who are in different niches who are going through different business models. 

So it’s just like you gain all this exposure and proximity. And so to answer your question, absolutely, and it doesn’t really matter early on if it’s a free group or a paid group. If you can find a free group, more power to you, make make some friends, build a network, talk to people in the DMs. Uh, I did that very early on when I joined Alexa Saranoya’s free school group way back at the end of 2024, and I ended up interacting with a few people in her community. 

We started having our own calls offline outside of her community. And so I think it just it’s useful to insert yourself into the conversation and try to find people to connect with. And then when you’re ready to take that step and invest in yourself, whether it’s a group program like Tintins or a coaching program like mine or whomever’s maybe it’s a paid school community that has a weekly call that teaches YouTube stuff, um, whatever suits your budget and whoever you vibe with in terms of like you know, their coaching and how you want to learn. Um, that will probably accelerate your growth more quickly because you’re you’re just gaining more value and knowledge distilled versus a free community, whoever’s running it’s probably not going to invest as much into it. 

You know what I mean? So yeah, it’s YouTube like anything, like if you want to become you mentioned earlier an electrician, you have to kind of do an apprenticeship, right? You can’t just become an electrician overnight. 

You have to learn from people ahead of you. Same thing, you know, if you’re a carpenter. Um, same thing if you want to become a teacher or or professor, doctor. There’s there’s steps to learn. 

And along those steps, you’re putting yourself in the room with other people doing the work and a principal or a mentor who’s already done it. And that’s the best way to learn, especially doing YouTube. 

Spencer: Yeah, I think a lot of people see all these really big YouTubers and think that they just became successful overnight because they’re just popping up on their feed. But in reality, a lot of the big creators have been doing it for a really long time. And so, like you said, you have to learn. You have to get the knowledge before you can really become successful on YouTube. So I like that. 

Ty: I’ve almost, I mean, when I think about how much money I’ve made from YouTube, a huge chunk of that has been reinvested back into the business. And not just like a new camera or a microphone or software. It’s in my own development. It’s in my own learning. 

You know, so Tintin’s group is an example. Alexa Sara and I was my coach for a bit. Um, and there’s other programs that I’ve joined, like even early on, I mentioned on the top of the call. Um, Think Media, they have their their video ranking academy, which is their training, their their course essentially. Uh, I paid for that early on, and that was like a really good primer in crash course into YouTube. And you know, like the more you kind of immerse yourselves and do the study, you things start to click and you start to figure things out, and that becomes the foundation from which you build from. So it’s just it’s just doing it more quickly because you’re you’re you’re kind of immersing immersing yourself into it. 

Spencer: Yeah, so I I really like that. That is solid advice. I think I would join a group, you know, if I was starting a YouTube channel right away. Um, but I guess another question I have, and this may be jumping back a little bit, but you mentioned earlier in the episode, you know, some of your clients may like get like 35 views on a video and they have like no feedback, uh, because it’s only 35 views. 

So what would you recommend? Like, how do you stay motivated when you’re starting a new YouTube channel um from scratch? Because a lot of the times when you’re first starting out, you you have very little views and yeah, not a lot to go off of. 

Ty: It’s hard. There’s no like I don’t know if there’s a really clear answer or silver bullet. I think I think everyone sort of copes in their own way. I think for me, I was just very bullish having seen other people do what I wanted to do, just like people literally a few months ahead of me and what their upside was. So it was proof, it was validation that it could work. 

I just had to do the reps. And so I think for other folks starting, if you’re feeling like really defeated or like things aren’t moving, one find that support group that we talked about. Again, it doesn’t have to be a paid group, it could be a free free school community or a free Facebook group or wherever, wherever there’s other people creating, just try to try to find some communion because they’re struggling too. And you know, misery loves company, right? 

So find other people that are going through the hard thing with you and you can be there to support each other. The other thing is try to find examples of more successful channels who are doing the thing that you want to do. If you can’t find those examples, then you might be in a niche that doesn’t exist, which could be a good thing, but it’s also terrifying because you have no proof or validation that what you’re doing could ever work. 

If it does work, you’re gonna be a niche of one, which is amazing. But um try to find examples to validate your idea. So that’s like the two things. And then the third thing is I talk about this, I actually made a video about this not too long ago. 

The Pareto principle, which is like the idea that in a given system, 20% of the outputs contribute to 80% of the results, and so I’ve actually went back to look at my channel, and I was like, I found it was like 17% of all the videos that I’ve posted account for 80% of my views. Oh wow. So think about that. You know, when you think about the majority of the videos we post, four out of five videos that we post on our channels, by and large, on average for most creators are not going to move the needle. But it’s that fifth video that has a shot. Now, early on, it could be you post 20 videos and none of them move the needle. But eventually, if you will, and it’s just it’s the conviction and the patience to see this thing through. 

And for folks that have been doing it for a couple years and nothing is working, then I would say you got to completely rethink what you’re doing and your strategy, and you got to find people to give you constructive feedback because you probably haven’t had any. So, but it’s tough. It’s it’s a mind game, it’s doesn’t get any easier. The the hard the the more you grow, all of the same struggles that I had in my first few months, I mostly still have. They’re just different problems now. I hope that’s useful in some way. 

Spencer: No, I think that is really useful. I really like that. Um what you said about you know the four videos, don’t move the needle, but the fifth one will. Um, I want to bring up an analogy from one of our previous episodes. Uh but one of the creators preferred to YouTube videos is like a poker hand. And you can have really good knowledge about poker, you know, what cards to play. But sometimes, you know, you play your best hand possible uh and you don’t win the pot. Yeah. 

But eventually, if you keep playing, you know, eventually you’ll win. Yep. And that’s kind of the same with the videos and like your analogy at the four or the the fifth video, you know, will move the needle is if you keep consistently producing videos, you know, eventually you’ll have one that really takes off. Kind of like the one that you said um that helped your channel you know, get get off the ground. 

Ty: So it was a gamble. I mean, there was no guarantees making that thing it was gonna work. In retrospect, looking back, it was it was obvious why it worked, but when you’re making it, you have no idea. 

Everything is if the future is a black box, you cannot see into it. But I I agree with what you said just now about if you post enough, something will happen. And I have I have two client examples where they had a pretty broad niche, and at the time we thought it was fairly narrowed. But um, you know, video to video to video, there wasn’t a lot of movement until they made a video on a specific topic and that topic really connected. Um, and then all of a sudden it was like, hey, this is a really strong signal. Let’s try it again in a few videos and see what happens. 

And that signal was repeated, and it’s like, okay, I think this is the direction of the channel now. You’re gonna have to niche down even further and just talk about this one sort of like subsection of this topic. And my client who I’m thinking of, his name’s Kevin, uh, ask Papa on YouTube. He’s closing in on 50,000 subscribers, and he basically just talks about tiny home shed conversions. That’s his whole channel, and there’s a huge demand for his type of content. 

Interesting. And we never would have known that before making those first videos, you know what I mean? So you just you never really know what your audience is going to connect with. And oftentimes the niche finds us rather than us knowing in advance what it’s going to be. 

Spencer: Yeah, I like that. Solid advice. And speaking of advice, I’ve got one more question to get more of it from you. And this is one that we ask all of our guests on the show. But from your experience doing YouTube, has there been a mistake you’ve made that you’ve learned from that maybe our audience could hear and benefit for themselves? 

Ty: Oh man, it’s a mistake I haven’t quite gotten away from, actually. I get distracted a lot. I don’t know if you can relate to that or if any of the viewers out there can relate to that. Yes. 

Yes. But um, when you’re at home in your comfortable workstation where you spend a lot of time, it’s easy for an email ping or a DM or text or a YouTube video to catch our attention, and then we lose five 30 an hour of our day. And it’s kind of hard to like kick start that. Okay, I gotta get back into a deep work session to actually like write the next video. Um, I will lose complete days, sometimes weeks to shiny objects. So insofar as that’s a problem for you or anyone listening, is do what you can to like completely remove uh distractions from your environment, what physically distractions like your phone, um, you know, anything else that might interfere with your work. 

And um there’s software that you can put on your devices to help mitigate you beating off and going to different websites that you shouldn’t go to during the day. But that’s a big problem for me. There’s so much I want to work on. Like I’m really into AI these days, and I’m vibe coding all of these things, and I want to build stuff for my clients, but you know, it’s it’s hard to balance that between client delivery, uh, prospect sales calls, content for YouTube, and just like other ideas, programs that I’m in, and sometimes I fall behind on the hard things, which is like emails and YouTube videos. 

So it’s a lesson that I’m still learning, and I haven’t quite figured it out. But I’ll also say, too, is um, as long as it’s in service to other people, and you’re not just passively consuming, but you’re you’re creating and you’re building, you’re making assets for your business or things that would be um maybe like a newsletter or lead magnet or something like that, then it can still be useful to grow the business and to to support the marketing efforts of the channel. But um ultimately content, YouTube content is like the single highest leverage activity anybody can be doing for their YouTube business. And so it really has to be prioritized. And that’s something I’m still trying to figure out. 

Spencer: I I think that’s really um good advice. I don’t know if anyone’s explained it as like a shiny object before, but that is a really good analogy. Yeah. You know, it’s easy to get distracted by a shiny object. Um for me, so when when me and my wife started our own business doing editing, to be your own boss, like if you’re if your job is YouTube, you have to be really self-disciplined. Because like you said, it is so easy to get distracted. For me, when I don’t have a lot of work, like my work, my workload varies from week to week depending on what my clients need. But when there’s less work, it’s easier for me to get um less motivated or distracted than when I have a lot of projects to work on. So I I would recommend to add on to what you said, you know, even if you don’t have plans to still, you know, try to put something out there to keep yourself busy. But yeah, I think that that’s really good advice. So Ty, well, thank you for for being on the show. 

I think this has been a great episode. Um, if our viewers and watchers want to reach out to you, what would be the best way to do that? Uh just my YouTube channel. 

Ty: It’s uh @Ty_Myers. And uh hopefully you don’t find the country singer and you find me instead. Um, but yeah, that’s the best way to find me. Uh, my contact info is there as well. So yeah. But Spencer, thank you for having me. It’s been a great conversation. Yeah. 

Spencer: Really great episode, like I said. Um, and so thanks again for being on. Um, and thanks to our listeners and watchers for checking out this episode. Make sure to like and subscribe for more content like this where we talk to real creators. And if you need help creating your videos, feel free to reach out to us at http://www.creatorluxe.com. And we will see you in the next one.