Hey creators! 👋🏻

First off, I want to thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. It truly means the world. I am going to try and release one newsletter every single week. About YouTube, successes with my clients, my view on certain viral videos, and tips and tricks that I want to share with my readers that helped me.

And this first newsletter is about that last one.

You see, I have been running businesses for the last ten years. I started when I was 18, and I turned 30 a few weeks ago. Time flies. It’s insane.

In those years, I have learned a LOT.

I fell flat on my face, but always dusted myself off and got back in the saddle one more time than I fell.

And after exiting my last company, I had to do some soul-searching.

What do I really love?

The answer was in front of me the whole time.

I have been working on YouTube for years. Always as a side project out of passion. I grew up with the platform. I watched creators fall and rise since 2008 and made my own viral videos along the way.

I needed to get back into the game of YouTube, but this time, with all my hours instead of just a few per week.

It was time to TRULY follow my passion.

So. I sat down, crunched some numbers to figure out how much time I would have before I had to feed my partner and baby daughter cardboard for dinner, and came to the following conclusion:

I need to make this my full-time living in under a year.

So. I went to work. Because time was of the essence. ⏱️

First I had to figure out where to offer my services. I heard one platform come up quite a few times: Upwork.

So, I made a profile on Upwork, got a subscription, and had to figure out my hourly rate.

This was where I took my first important decision.

You see, Upwork is full of opportunists from economically weak countries. They are willing to do expert-level work for $20 an hour. And I say: get that bag, nothing wrong with it.

But I was different. I am a 30-year-old man with skin in the game and years of business knowledge under my belt. I don’t want to compete with 20-year-olds from Pakistan, India, or whatever country far away from home.

I decided to create my own level on Upwork. One that no one has touched as far as I could see in the YouTube Strategy realm there:

My starting hourly rate was going to be $250.

My girlfriend thought I was nuts. ‘‘Who is going to pay that amount?’’

I knew there were creators out there that were serious enough about wanting to grow that they would.

If they could, they would get Paddy Galloway. But I had to perform and look like a great second option that was actually available and affordable compared to Paddy.

Now of course, I also needed to ensure I delivered as Paddy does, and I am still actively working on that seeing that I just got started literally about 90 days ago.

But I went to work. I started sending proposals on Upwork like there was no tomorrow.

My success rate? I’d say 2%.

But, there was success. I found my first client, a full-time YouTube couple averaging 1M views a month, and in desperate need of a creative thinker to help them come up with better ideas and stories.

I was elated to get to work with them, and love doing so to this day. And with that hourly rate, I did not need a 50% win rate. I just needed to get the ball rolling.

Plus I positioned myself in the higher-end market from the get-go by doing so.

From that moment on, it was mostly word of mouth. I pretty much abandoned Upwork because I simply don’t need to reach out anymore. I just use my Twitter and Discord to keep networking with people and to add interesting clients to the roster. ⛷️

Right now I make more than enough to just focus on results for the coming months with my clients. I am not looking to take on 30 clients and spread myself thin. I am focused on getting these clients the results they deserve and myself the credibility I need to grow the business.

If there is one thing you need to get from this first newsletter, it is that everything is possible, as long as you are smart about it.

Know your value, and don’t be afraid to do things for free to show it. 🏋️‍♂️

For next week, I would love YOUR opinion on what you’d like to read in my newsletter. Seeing that this was my first real attempt at it (pretty exciting to be honest😳) I think it’s not more than normal to ask you all for your opinion:

And please, it takes me quite some time to do these weekly, so if you think this specific newsletter was of value to you and it could also be of value to your friend, forward it to them!

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