How to Go From 0-200K Subscribers on YouTube FAST with Jonathan Levi

0:28Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. grow? Does he do it all by himself or with a team? The biggest challenge, what's next, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jonathan and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's Franchise Funding Guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings. Visit franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com.

1:04Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Jonathan, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Greetings, everyone, and thanks for having me back. I'm really glad to be back. And one thing that I believe, it might actually be the same thing that I probably said last time because I still believe it, but I believe that ultimately success comes down to learning.

1:48I believe that it has very little to do with talent. I don't really believe in talent. I believe in learning and developing the skills that you need to get where you want to go. Fire Nation, I'm loving where this conversation is going, specifically because we're going to talk about going from zero to 200 ,000 subscribers on YouTube. Not slow. Who has time for that? We're talking fast. And I do want to dive more into your current story, Jonathan, but share your previous experience with YouTube because I think that's going to really help us as we go through this content. Yeah. Yeah. So when we spoke a few years ago, I was doing online courses and I had a little bit of YouTube experience, but I viewed YouTube as an afterthought.

2:29It was a way to get people into my funnel and it wasn't kind of my main gig. So, you know, we would do some keyword research and upload a video that we thought would get views. But at the end of the day, YouTube was not a goal in and of itself. It was a means to an end. I then took a little detour and I did a Bitcoin channel, you know, like educating people, warning people about kind of all the scams that are out there and the fundamentals behind Bitcoin, which I believe in, unlike the rest of the cryptosphere. And that channel was in a very competitive space and it forced me to kind of really go to school and learn like, OK, wait a minute, there's there's much more to this YouTube thing.

3:05It's a world in and of itself. It's its own thing, right? It's not another top of funnel thing. And then I got into 3D printing about three years ago during COVID. I became obsessed. And that's when I decided, hey, you know what? I'm going to take this YouTube thing much more seriously. It's not going to be a means to an end. And it's not going to be a hobby like it was with the Bitcoin thing. I'm going to make this my full-time gig. Jonathan, I love that story. And it's kind of interesting because I've followed kind of a similar path as well. I mean, for years, I kind of just dismissed YouTube as like, you know, I'm just not going to focus on it.

3:41I have an audio only show, like blah, blah, blah. And it was what it was. But this will strike a chord with you being a Bitcoin guy, because I'm actually a Bitcoin maximalist. I've been into Bitcoin since 2018, loved it. But in 2024, I fell in love. And I mean, I just fell in love. I will say later than I wished I did, but it took me till 2024 with specifically Michael Saylor. I'm just like, this guy is my guy. And the company strategy just blew my mind when I watched his Q3 earnings report. So for the first time ever, back in October, I launched my first actual YouTube show. It's a 15 minute news update every single day, only on MSTR.

4:20That's it. I don't cover any other topics, just MSTR, only strategy. And I'm the only guy doing it. And like, I've seen so much growth and success because I am able to capture this micro niche, which is just people that care about one company, which is not a big niche, but it's the niche that I'm able to dominate. And now I have 17 ,000 subscribers. Every video that's released, by the way, every 24 hours, a new video comes out, 7 ,000, 10 ,000, 12 ,000 views, like consistently. And you've done that in the 3D printing space. Like you've been able to dominate that space because you realize that, hey, this is a niche that has passionate people and I'm going to get in front of the wave.

5:00I'm going to get, you know, the waves going that direction. Let's get in front of that. So how do you approach that channel differently that actually made it grow? Yeah. I want to clarify one thing you said though, which is I'm not dominating the niche. There are guys and gals that have been in the niche, you know, 10 years who are still bigger channels, but, uh, I'm certainly the fastest growing channel and kind of the, the came out of nowhere channel, but I want to give respect to the folks who've been here, 10 years and have a million subscribers to my 200 ,000. I'm going to say you're a dominating force in this space.

5:33That's all. I'll amend that. That's fair. That's fair. All right. Take it away, brother. I just didn't want anyone in my niche to listen and be like, hey, now. Totally. Totally. To answer your question, how did I approach this differently? As I'm sure your audience knows, if they heard our last episode, my last gig was teaching learning. And so ever since doing that, I've really approached everything, whether it's meeting a wonderful woman and creating a family to starting a new business. I approach everything as a learning journey. What are the skills I need to know that the people who do exceptionally well at this, whatever this is, know?

6:09And therefore, so I think the first thing I did differently was I gave YouTube the respect it deserves, right? You wouldn't start a business in manufacturing without really giving the product its respect. You wouldn't start an e-commerce store if you didn't know anything about e-commerce. But something about YouTube and its origins, people think I can turn on the camera, throw up a video, and then they don't understand why the channel is not growing or why people aren't watching the videos. YouTube is its own whole thing and it has become so rich. There's a whole culture. There are norms. There's obviously SEO, right?

6:50Because it's owned by Google. But there's also so much strategy behind it. And there are memes that are happening. And never mind talking about video production and quality. I mean, there's just so much to learn. There's probably eight different aspects to it that you need to learn. And I gave it its respect. And I said, you know what? I'm going to become a student, even though I've been in content creation for 10 years, if you think about it, creating online courses, podcasts. I'm going to act as if I know nothing here. And I went back to basics. How do you light a YouTube video, which is different from an online course?

7:27How do you edit a YouTube video, which is different? How does SEO look, which is different from the podcasts and blogs that I've done in the past? What are good thumbnails? Are thumbnails important? Are titles important? How do I choose how to write my videos? So I really took it as a learning journey, and I still do. I'm all day long. If I'm not recording, I'm watching podcasts. I'm listening to thought leaders. I'm watching other YouTubers, and I'm really studying the craft. And I think that's what's made the absolute biggest difference. Fire Nation, we're learning from somebody who's been there, who's done that, who's growing an incredible channel in a very interesting and unique space.

8:06And I think, Jonathan, what a lot of people might be asking themselves are, do you have a team? Like, is there like a team of people behind you that are helping you do all this? Or is this channel all being done by yourself? Yeah. So I'm very lucky because I came from content creation. I had the team in place and I kind of poached my team from my own business and brought them over to here. So we're three people full time. There's Leslie in the Philippines who does all the admin, all of the billing kind of runs my life so I can stay in the creative space. There's Eric who does the editing also full time in the Philippines.

8:42And then we have some freelancers for, you know, thumbnails, things like that. I think, you know, that's one of the things. Obviously, I'm coming from a place of privilege that I had these people on my team. I was working with them. I kind of brought them over and was able to make the investment in saying, hey, guys, come over full time on this thing that's not even making money. But I think many YouTubers that I know have channels as large as mine. They hold on too long to too many things. And as I'm sure you have, John, I've learned the hard way. right oh yeah like even if i maybe could do it better yeah finding someone who's going to do it 80 as well as me and just take it off my plate um and yeah like i said i know a lot of folks who've been doing this for 10 years in my niche who still edit their own videos and that's awesome if if that's what you love and that's what that's part of your creative process i'm just as happy to leave comments on a word doc and tell eric this is what i want this is how it's done and let him do the actual cutting, cropping, chopping, mixing.

9:49And then, you know, who loves doing their emails? I'm super happy to have Leslie do that. So yeah, that's one piece of advice that I think has allowed me to grow is I am solely focused. And I've done a fair bit of coaching as well, right? I was in Genius Network with Joe Polish, and I was in Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan for a while. So I've really had it beaten into my head that I should be doing the things that I love, that only I can do that inspire me, that are my unique ability, right? As Dan Sullivan would call it. And that is, I need to show up. I need to be in the videos. I need to write most of the video.

10:26You know, ChatGPT can help with the phrasing a little. And I need to decide what projects I want to do and what's going to inspire me. Everything else can be delegated. So what would a channel of the size of yours with the production schedule that you have, what would be a range that a person could potentially think that they could be making? I mean, is this like a$4 ,000 to$8 ,000 a month? Is this like, can somebody around the size of your channel with a niche that's similar? Is this like a$10 ,000 to$40 ,000? Like what's the range that someone can expect? It's always going to be different because of the topic and the vertical and the niche and the sponsorships.

11:07I have nothing to hide, especially from your audience, which is entrepreneurs. I don't know if I want all of my viewers knowing how much I charge for a video, but YouTube AdSense can range. So I'm doing about 900 ,000 views a month. Most of them long form, not shorts. YouTube AdSense on a given month can range from 3 ,500 to 5 ,500 US. On a given video, I might charge as low as$1 ,700 if it's a 60 second spot all the way up, right? project videos can be 2 ,500, 3 ,500. I've had sponsors pay 15 ,000 for a video. Um, and you do, I can do about three to four videos a month. Then there's Patreon, there's affiliates, there's YouTube memberships, there's merchandise.

11:57So, um, to answer your question, it's, I don't know what to tell you on any given month and it's growing very quickly, but it's 10 to 40 in a given month. Um, I think what's been your best affiliate experience so far overall, all? Yeah. Just like with the company that you've used or like the way that you did it's like that actually worked and brought in some actual affiliate revenue. That's of course different than like an actual paid sponsor, et cetera. So I'm going to give your audience an awesome tip, which is, has probably put$20 ,000 in my pocket in the last month. Um, at a lot of these companies that I'm working with, right.

12:30The person who's managing the influencers, I don't like that term, but the person who's managing me is not the person who cares about the bottom line. They care about showing their manager, hey, I signed this content agreement. We paid him whatever,$4 ,500 and I brought in$100 ,000 or I brought in$200 ,000. So I put in my contract. I say, unless you tell us otherwise, we're going to use our affiliate link to your program on any sponsored ad. you know, and so that you can track our performance. Never once, John, never once has someone come back and been like, wait, we're paying you$4 ,500 plus 10%.

13:15Never. It's never once happened. And I've told them like, Hey, if you want for that month, you can set my affiliate commission to zero. Never happened. And I had one sponsor pay$4 ,500 for a project video. And I was like, that's pretty good. It was a project I really enjoyed doing. I wanted to do it anyway. I liked the product. And then I went and did like 80 to date, maybe$90 ,000 in sales from that video on a 10 % commission. Everyone's happy. I'm thrilled. Everyone's happy. I'm pretty sure that that rep got a raise because she came back and she's like, we want to sign up for more videos. My manager's thrilled.

13:58Can I send you more printers? We just launched these three printers. I want to send you all of them. Like they're FedExing me printers. They're signing up. I mean, everyone's thrilled. Her manager's thrilled. And so, yeah, it cost them an extra, you know, nine grand, but I think it's understanding like for you and me, small businesses, medium businesses, I'd be like, dude, I'm not paying twice, but for these massive companies, they're like, yeah, cool. I'm super, you know, it's, it's not up to me at the end of It doesn't come out of my pocket. I'm one employee of 2 ,000. I'm super happy to tell my manager, this is exactly how much I brought in.

14:35So that one tip has been a game changer. That's huge. That is so huge. Thank you for sharing that. And Fire Nation, more great tips when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Starting your own business can feel intimidating. Where do you start? How do you grow? When will you start generating revenue? All valid questions. If you love the idea of creating wealth and freedom, but you're not sure if starting from scratch is the way to go, then I'm excited to tell you about Franocity. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and creates legacy income for their families through franchising.

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18:12High level, join the revolution. Jonathan, what's been the biggest challenge when it comes to growth? Yeah, well, I've made some mistakes and I've kind of messed up in certain ways. But I think making a mistake with an embargo and souring a relationship. it. But I think the biggest thing ultimately with YouTube is there's just never enough time. Even if you delegate everything you can, this isn't like what I was doing before where it's like you create an online course, it's a few months of hard work, and then you kind of sit back and you market it every single week or every time you hit publish immediately after you hit publish, the algorithm is going to do what it's going to do.

18:56And you, it's kind of out of your hands. You know, 80 % of YouTube views or more come just from the browse feature and very little from subscribers. So it really comes down to you got to make the best possible video you can and then it's out of your hands. What that means is the minute you hit publish, it's like you got to feed the beast again, right? What have you done for me lately is what I always say. So there's just never enough time. 24 hours a day, I could be working on the next video to get it out faster, to make it better, to get better B-roll. It really is an insatiable monster, which is great if you love to create and that's all you want to do is create.

19:42It's not for everybody. And a lot of YouTubers burn out because it is exhausting and you're literally losing money anytime you're not publishing right on the next video uh for me i'm based in israel uh and for me october 7th was like a huge wake-up call for me where i was like oh my god life is way too short and way too fragile to be worried about publishing the next video and so i've just really chilled i told my team if we make it if it gets out today it gets out today. If it doesn't get out today, I'll apologize to the sponsor. None of my contracts are fixed. You know, they're all a range of dates and I'm just, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna live my life in stress over fun educational videos on the internet.

20:30You know what I mean? Right. I think it's super important to maintain that perspective, right? Even if it is your job, even if it is a matter of shipping your products, which is what it is, life's just too short to be stressed about videos on the internet, you know? Well, on that note, like what's next, like what's next for your channel? What are your next milestones? Yeah. So I don't know when this episode is going to come out, but in the next day or two, we're going to hit 200 K and to celebrate that we're going to launch a second channel, which is going to be kind of, um, I mean, if I'm honest, it's repurposing a lot of the B roll that ends up on the cutting room floor that a lot of our audience once, like, you know, I'll do a project, which is a 40 hour build of a 3d printer, I'll have maybe 30 hours of b roll.

21:18And I'll use less than an hour of that time lapse then sped up in a video. Well, there are a lot of people who want to build that exact printer, and they want to see the whole build process. So going back taking that b roll and talking over it as a voiceover, much less produced, much less, you know, uh, polished, but just, it's an asset that we have. Our audience wants it. Why not get it out there? Uh, so those are the next two things and, and yeah, man, I'm, I'm, I'm head down for that gold play button one day. I'm a long ways away, but that's where I want to go. But it can happen quick. I mean, you know, once you kind of have that right thing that just hits and all of a sudden you look up, I mean, I've had a couple of videos, that have added thousands of subscribers.

22:04And for me, only having 17 ,000, that was a huge jump. So I mean, it can happen quick. I mean, somebody that I think we both know, Pat Flynn, he went into the Pokemon space and he just hit a million subscribers because he just hit that niche and just did it right. And I mean, he's doing it for many, many years now, but I mean, going from like 500K to a million was a lot faster than going from zero to 500. And people just don't understand how huge YouTube is, right? Like people talk about TikTok and Instagram. Like YouTube is the biggest content platform far and away. YouTube is now a larger proportion of watch time on TV.

22:44That's exactly what I was going to say. I can't believe in my analytics how many people are watching my show on a TV. It's unbelievable. And that's just on TVs. Add in smartphones. I mean, YouTube is, it's kind of trite to say it, but it's like, it's one of the biggest sites on the internet, if not the, in terms of traffic. So it's massive. There are billions of people watching it every single day. And, you know, I had a mentor who told me, take a, what is it? Take a thimble, a teaspoon or a bucket. The ocean doesn't care. That's how I feel about YouTube. There are, you know, the people that I'm looking up to that I'm consulting with that are mentoring me are 500, 700, a million subscribers.

23:29Right. And what I'm realizing is each of them, it's a different 700. So there are millions of people even in consumer 3D printing, which I think is still, as you mentioned, like it's still a little niche. It's not, you know, where video games are or tech or cars. but I see no reason why it can sustain multiple channels of a million people. And I mean, I've, I've been able to support myself with this channel since a hundred K. So at a million, we're doing cool stuff. We're doing cool stuff, baby. We're building dream workshops. I mean, I already have kind of a dream workshop, but we're building dream workshops.

24:07We're flying around the world to manufacturers. We're hiring more staff. We're, we're doing cool projects. Well, Jonathan, if Fire Nation wants to follow that process, where do they go? What is your call to action for our listeners today? Yeah, just check me out at youtube.com slash at the next layer or search the next layer on YouTube. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with JL and JLD today, so keep up that heat. For links to everything that we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Jonathan in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up.

24:41And Jonathan, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks for having me, man. Take care. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Jonathan for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, which is personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk.

25:13The common path to uncommon success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's Franchise Funding Guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings. Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies?

25:57Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.