Why My 4 YouTube Channels Failed: Lessons from 2 Years of Content Creation
From 0 to 4 Failed Channels: My Honest YouTube Journey and Mistakes
An honest look at the struggles of a multi-channel creator and the hard lessons learned from low engagement and zero monetization
How many channels have received monetization? How many subscribers do the channels have? What niches? How many hours of views per month? These are the questions every beginner asks, but the reality of YouTube growth is often much harsher than the success stories we see on our feeds. After two years of experimenting, I’m ready to share the raw numbers behind my "failures."
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| Photo by TheRegisti on Unsplash |
First, I’ll show you the analytics for my channels. Transparency is key to understanding why some content hits the mark while others stay in the shadows of the YouTube algorithm.
Channel One: The Origami Niche
The first channel I started was an origami channel. I wanted to do something without showing my face. As a result, I only have 563 subscribers and 1,160 hours of views. Before monetization, I need to get 3,000 hours. But the channel gets no more than 10 hours a month, which is incredibly little.
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| Analytics overview for Raccoon’s Ideas |
The highest number of views the video has received is 29,000, and now it produces very little output. The algorithm picked it up for a while and then stopped.
There are 313 videos on the channel, and the most views are on Christmas topics.
- Short review: subscribers: 563;
- Hours watched: 1160 (needs 3000 for monetization);
- Content: 313 videos;
- Problem: low engagement (10 hours/month). The algorithm “forgot” even a video with 29K views.
Second Channel: Screensavers and Relaxing Content
I read about what topics are popular and saw that screensavers collect millions of views, and decided to make my own channel. Since such videos are easy to make, I made screensavers a year in advance in a few days.
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| Performance of Artistic Screens |
Here I have only 76 subscribers and 1,591 hours of views out of 3000 hours. Only about 100 views per month and an average of 17 hours per month, which is very little to reach monetization. There are 141 videos on the channel. The most popular has 2,100 views.
At the moment, the channel is almost abandoned. I can’t find time to fill it again.
- Short review: subscribers: 76;
- Hours of views: 1591;
- Content: 137 videos and 4 shorts;
- Problem: content does not retain the audience (17 hours/month).
Third Channel: Travel Shorts
Since this channel also gets a few views, I made a channel where I post videos about travel. I have only 65 publications on the channel, one of which is a video, the rest are shorts. Since I almost stopped posting anything on the channel, the views have dropped significantly.
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Travel content reach for Life with Enotochka |
The most popular video has 645 views. But for traveling, you need a great camera, not my Ulefone 14 (for those who don’t know what it is, it’s a little-known Chinese brand of phones).
- Short review: subscribers: 44;
- Hours of views: 12 hours of video and 100 shorts;
- Problem: poor quality of filming (Ulefone 14 phone).
Channel Four: Unboxing and Lifestyle
Since I like unboxing videos, I decided to make my own. But since there is almost nothing to film, my videos are short, of poor quality, not as bright as those of popular bloggers with excellent cameras, I don’t have any expensive purchases, and people don’t subscribe much.
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| Unboxing trends on Julia Raccoon |
As a result, I started experimenting, filming pets, unpacking cosmetics, unpacking treats, holiday tables, and interesting things in stores. One of them got 7900 views in 4 days, but did not bring subscribers.
- Short review: subscribers: 87;
- Viewing hours: 28,000 views of shorts;
- Content: 130 shorts.
Mistakes I Made
Looking back at my content creator journey, several factors contributed to the stagnation of these channels:
- The content quality is poor: i understand that people like beautiful, clear, bright videos. Even if there is no point in going down, they gain more because of the good quality. Но бюджета нет;
- Publishing without a clear schedule: yes, everyone has heard 100 times that you need to post at least one video a week. But there is not enough budget and resources for this;
- Too many channels: i simply do not have time to manage them all without help.
Conclusions I Made
In general, for now, my channels are stuck on the strategy — Publish and hope. For the videos to be interesting, you need not only the first 3 seconds of an interesting video, but also good equipment. And to save up for equipment, you need a lot of views. I don’t know when I’ll break out of this vicious circle, so far I’m trying various free promotion methods.
If you want to support my YouTube channels, subscribe if you’re interested in the niche:
- Julia Raccoon (unboxing);
- Life with Enotochka (travel);
- Artistic Screens (screensavers);
- Raccoon’s Ideas (origami).
For promotion, I tried about 30 methods that didn’t work, I’ll tell you more about them in the following articles, subscribe.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this journey was falling for the hype surrounding short-form content as a "guaranteed" way to go viral. Many creators believe that simply posting vertical clips will fix their engagement issues, but without a solid strategy, you're just repeating the same mistakes in a different format. To understand why your quick efforts might be hitting a brick wall, you need to look at my specific findings on vertical video trends. Read the next part of my investigation here:
Insider Tip: to avoid the "poor quality" trap I fell into, you don't need to spend thousands, but a few key upgrades can save your channel. If you need a vlogging kit for smartphones to stabilize your shots or a budget 4K action camera for travel videos, you can find reliable gear via Amazon Content Creator Store. Better light and sound are the best "Plan B" to keep viewers from clicking away!
While I’m navigating the ups and downs of the YouTube algorithm, I’m also busy creating things that don't depend on a "like" button to be valuable. Maybe you’ll find something useful to help with your own creative planning or just something beautiful to cheer you up after a tough day in the lab? 🦝
Have you ever faced a creative burnout or had a project that didn't go as planned, and what was the one lesson that helped you keep going? Let's talk about our "fail" stories in the comments!
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