If you had told me when I was 1 year into YouTube, that I should completely ignore Adsense, sponsors and affiliates, I would have (metaphorically) crapped my pants. I'd thought about selling a product, but it felt like I had to have a big enough audience to be able to make great money from Adsense too. It didn't feel like there was another option. Now today, more YouTubers have woken up to the fact that it’s very hard to build a big enough audience to monetise like that. But still, YouTubers...
1 day ago • 2 min read
When I first started YouTube in 2021, I thought I was going to get rich from Adsense, sponsors and affiliates. The plan was to get 100,000s of views, partner with brands like Skillshare and make bank through Amazon's affiliate scheme by talking about books. And within a few years, I’d be walking down to the yacht shop in Monaco and eyeing up a $2m boat. First of all, yes I am that jacked in real life. Don't laugh. Secondly, I didn't actually start YouTube just for the money. I was motivated...
2 days ago • 2 min read
Hey YouTuber, This week, I’m going to be running a 7 day email series. Because it’s my 5 year anniversary for starting on YouTube. And since my first video back in October 2021, YouTube has completely changed my life. I’ve gone from being a 25 year old dweeb in consulting, who knew nothing about how to make videos... ...to running Ali Abdaal's YouTube channel for 2 years... ...to a still dweeby 30 year old running his own YouTube business, and flying around the world to podcast with people my...
3 days ago • 3 min read
This week, I've felt fired up with the business. In August and September, I cancelled my WeWork subscription (a co-working space) for various reasons, and decided it'd be good to experiment without it. Usually I'd go there a couple times a week and meet with various other entrepreneur friends. But instead I tested working from home and cafes. In short, it sucked. I didn't quite realise how much it was damaging me until I got back into WeWork last week. Some people can just lock in from home...
7 days ago • 2 min read
One question I get a lot from clients and other YouTubers is "how do I get proof?" Proof that I know what I’m talking about. Proof for my landing page. Proof for my sales calls. Proof that I can help someone. Especially when you haven’t helped someone before. And the answer is… You build the Pyramids of Giza. Not literally, no one has time for that. But you steal the philosophy. If you’re building a huge pyramid, you start with the first brick…like my lovely Pharaoh has done here. Then you...
10 days ago • 3 min read
So, I hit the big 30 on Sunday... I had a celebratory coffee with my boi Safwaan at Kings Cross WeWork. It's a big moment. And I'm feeling blessed. One of my goals was to turn 30 looking less like a cooked ramen noodle, and so I started working out a year ago. Another goal was to build an impactful business where I helped people in the real world, and I'm grateful to have done that too. And I want to share one important takeaway from my 20s that I hold dear to my heart. Which I am bringing...
13 days ago • 2 min read
A few weeks ago, I hung out with my old boss Ali Abdaal for the first time in about 18 months. Ali, me, his wife Izzy, his brother Taimur and his wife Lucia I left his team at the start of 2025, and he’s moved to Hong Kong so it’s been harder to hang out. But it was great to catch up, and unsurprisingly we spent most of the time talking about business. And there was an interesting takeaway I wanted to share with you. Ali has a new product, the Lifestyle Business Academy, which he started...
21 days ago • 2 min read
So, YouTube has changed the way they're counting views. In case you haven't seen the latest changes, here's a quick summary: Before the update = A view used to be counted when someone watched "some amount of seconds" of your video. YouTube didn't disclose how many seconds so people didn't game the system. After the update = Now a view is counted "from the very first frame - whether that’s a Short appearing in the feed or a long-form video autoplaying on the Home page". Why have they done...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
If you like reading about people’s personal finances, this one’s for you. Because recently I posted a YouTube video called “How I make $288k/year with only 19k subs”. And you hear jacked online business bros (like me 💪) talking about these kinds of numbers all the time just to get views, and you wonder what’s true and what’s not. What does $288k/year actually mean? And how much do I have left to spend on coffees and golf holidays with the boys? When I first started making money in the...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read