3 Rookie Errors I Made Starting My YouTube Channel & Podcast
150+ episodes in, I’m celebrating by reflecting on the mistakes made in starting my channel that have shaped my growth since.
As I draft this blog, I have officially published my 150th episode on YouTube, nearly two years into this journey.
To mark the milestone, I’m reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned from starting my channel. Particularly, the things I wish I did differently from the get-go and share these with anyone else wanting to start a YouTube or podcast channel.
Mistake #1. Quality over Quantity
It’s unconventional and seems counterintuitive, but stick with me while I share some science behind why I now prioritise quantity over quality.
Adam Grant reminds us in his book, Originals, you have to kiss frogs before you find your Prince Charming. And, as the best creatives seem to understand this better than most:
“Creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality.”
Picasso’s body of work includes more than 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, 12,000 drawings and 2,800 ceramics. Plus prints, rugs, and tapestries. Only a small portion granted him the acclaim he became revered for.
Shakespeare shares a similar story. In five years, he produced three of his five most popular pieces - Macbeth, King Lear and Othello. He also produced Timon of Athens and All’s Well That Ends Well - ranked among his worst works in the same window.
Even Einstein was no exception. He may have transformed physics, but much of his 248 publications had little impact.
So, the assumption that chasing quality over quantity often proves false. Grant says:
“When it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality.”
While a quality video is still, of course, important for YouTube and your audience, don’t let aiming for perfection prevent you from putting more ideas out there. Eventually, your quantity creates higher quality.
Mistake #2. Not failing fast enough
The secret to quantity over quality is in the failure - failing more and failing faster.
You’ve likely heard the phrase:
“Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks”.
Yet, over time, a disdain for a “spray and pray” approach in business also emerged. But could throwing spaghetti really be the magnificently messy way to succeed? The research suggests it is.
Eric Barker, in his book Barking up the Wrong Tree, shares the ‘Spaghetti Problem’. Peter Skillman, General Manager of Smart Things at Microsoft, designed the experiment. The challenge was, in 18 minutes, to build the tallest structure possible using:
20 pieces of art spaghetti
1 metre of tape
1 piece of string
1 marshmallow
Over five years, Skillman tested more than 700 people. This included engineers, managers and MBA students. They were all outperformed by one group - kindergarteners. In fact, the MBAs were the worst performing. What was the kids’ secret? They jumped in. They tried stuff. Failing quickly and learning quickly. As Silicon Valley has popularised, they were ready to ‘fail fast and fail cheap’.
So, when it comes to your channel, embrace your child-like curiosity and resilience. Fail fast.
Mistake #3. Forgetting I’m not so smart, but sometimes just lucky
When I first read Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba’s book The Unfair Advantage, it quickly became one of my favourites. Yet there was an important lesson I was overlooking - the role of luck.
The authors present their ‘MILES’ framework. Which proposes that your unfair advantage can be made up by any of the following dimensions:
Money
Intelligence and insight
Location and luck
Education and expertise
Status
In The Unfair Advantage, the authors propose that you already have the competitive edge you need to succeed in the marketplace. The key is understanding and leveraging it.
The Unfair Advantage challenges two popular schools of thought:
Meritocracy: This believes that hard work deserves success.
Fatalism: Says success is all about luck, timing, natural talent and fate.
Ali and Kubba propose the secret lies in the middle. Embracing both luck and hard work, because it plays a bigger role in success stories than you might think. For example, Bill Gates went to one of the only schools with a state-of-the-art computer. It’s often an overlooked detail in his success story.
So, how do you create your own luck? Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire, studied ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky’ people.
The study of thousands of people showed that lucky people maximise opportunities. They’re open to new experiences and are less neurotic. Simply said:
“Lucky people just try stuff."
When I first started my YouTube channel, I saw some very early signs of success. I assumed all the research and planning I’d done had paid off. I was underestimating the power of luck. For example, if someone else's video on a topic you have videos on goes viral, you might also ride the coattails of their success. I’ve now realised that in whatever you perceive as a success or failure, there is always an element of luck at play. The key is strategising and working hard so that you get the lucky break when your preparation meets opportunity. And with quantity over quality, you’ll create your own luck faster.
Failing faster
In the first year of my channel, I uploaded one new episode weekly. In the second year, I increased this to two episodes. Some episodes have performed okay, and some have performed very poorly. But, had I not doubled my output, it would have taken me two years to learn from the data I’ve been able to gain in one. Starting a YouTube and podcast channel can feel so serious when you first start, but the key is remembering it isn’t. Most people aren’t even paying any attention to what you’re doing in those early stages, so experiment and fail faster so you can succeed quicker.
For more on the mindset of tiny experiments, see my earlier blog, Don’t set goals: Make pacts. Step into 2026 with a new approach to making progress.
