Do you enjoy looking at people’s online traffic statistics? If so, today’s post is for you. 🙂

One year ago on January 17, 2021 I began my YouTube journey uploading my 1st video on leveraged investing.
Drawing from my own experience I explained how borrowing to invest can accelerate your path to FI.

Since then I have uploaded another 42 videos, including YouTube shorts.
YouTube has taught me a lot over the last year.

But what I didn’t expect when I started was how long each video takes to produce.

Some videos take more time than others, but on average it takes me 1 hour of work per 1 minute of playtime.
So a 12 min long YouTube video takes me about 12 hours to make. This typically breaks down as follows.

• 2 Hours – Pre-production – research on the video topic, and script writing.
• 1 Hour – Recording and editing the voice over.
• 8 Hours – Editing the video, including stick figures, sound fx, music, etc.
• 1 Hour – Uploading, sharing, and optimizing search results for the video.

Good thing I only upload once a week. 🙂

Some YouTubers make videos every day. I don’t know where they find the time unless it’s their full time job, lol.

In today’s post I will share I learned about YouTube over the last 12 months, show some interesting analytics, and give my projections going forward. 🙂

My journey making YouTube videos – Year 1 Review

At the end of December 2021 I had 602 YouTube subscribers.
I didn’t have a goal when I started but I’m pleasantly surprised by this number. 🙂

I’m so grateful for everyone who has subscribed to my channel. 😀 It’s hard to believe over 600 people like my content enough to manually click on a button because they want to see more of what I make in the future.

600 is quite a lot. I’m picturing what that many people looks like in a room and it’s pretty crowded, lol.

To be able to influence that many individuals feels like a true privilege. 🙂

2021 statistics and progress

Here are some graphs from YouTube’s analytics and vidIQ over the course of my first year.
These figures seem accurate from what I can tell.

Views

Out of 20,000 views, roughly half came from Canada.

The typical viewer is in my age group. Go figure. 🙂

Here is a breakdown of the views over time.

I shared my first video on social media and my YouTube channel was off to a great start.
Then it stagnated for several months, and started to grow again in the summer. 🙂

My 2 most viewed videos are:
1) XEQT vs VEQT – All-in-one ETF portfolio comparison (2,795 views)
This video has mass appeal and provides valuable insights for Canadian investors.

2) TFSA: How to build a $1 billion tax free portfolio (1,865 views)
This is a silly concept. I’m glad other people found the idea of a $1 billion TFSA as entertaining as I did, lol.

My 2 least viewed videos are:
1) How to buy stocks using Interactive Brokers Client Portal (119 views)
I uploaded this tutorial video recently. It needs some time to build more views.
2) What does negative real rates mean for your portfolio? (161 views)
I’m surprised this video didn’t perform well. The subject matter itself is intriguing. So maybe I did a poor job of explaining it. 🤔

Watch time

This is how many hours of videos were watched per week. 1,309 hours in total. Wow. 🙂

Again, January was a great month. And then no growth for awhile. There was a bump in June, but that did not sustain itself and dropped soon after.
It wasn’t until September that people spent more time watching my videos. I assume part of the reason is simply because I have more videos to watch, lol.

Goals for year 2

I plan to continue making weekly videos. The end of 2022 will mark my second year as a YouTuber, and I have the following targets to aim for:

• 1,500 total subscriber.
  If I convinced 600 people to subscribe in my first year, I believe I can manage 900 more for my second year.
  I will break this goal down into 2 parts:
  1) Reach 1,000 total subscribers by the end of June 2022.
  2) Reach 1,500 total subscribers by end of year 2022.
• 3,000 hours total watch time.
  This would be amazing if my videos were watched this much. It’s the equivalent of streaming content for 24 hours a day for 125 days straight.
• Collaborate with other YouTubers.
  This sounds fun. But I’m not yet sure how I can do this.

Wrapping up

My YouTube channel doesn’t generate any income right now.
New creators can’t access ad revenue until they have 4,000 hours of watch time within the last 365 days.
As you can see above, I’m only at 1,309 hours. So that’s still far away from monetization, lol.

And that’s okay. I was already FI before starting YouTube so I don’t need my videos to make any revenue.
I just want to have another way to share my thoughts about money with the world other than blogging.

Back in 2020 I conducted an audience survey.
The results? Readers of this blog suggested I should start making finance videos. So I did, lol. 😀

Again, thank you everyone for supporting my new venture into YouTube over this past year.
I literally wouldn’t have any subscribers if it weren’t for amazing folks like you.

Every like 👍, share, comment, and subscription helps me a lot and I’m grateful for each one.
My wife Pearl and I plan to celebrate once I hit 1,000 subscribers. 🙂

Starting YouTube has given me another source of purpose and joy.

I love the interaction with people in my new YouTube community tab which I recently unlocked at 500 subs.
And I look forward to making more videos throughout this year. 😀

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Random Useless Fact:

Camping is offensive to homeless people. 😂