 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review, your source for everything on peace, except for maybe today, because we are celebrating another monumentous occasion. As for whatever reason, a mighty 200,000 of you have ended up subscribing to this channel, which to be fair, does inject regular on peace content straight into your YouTube feed. And if you have not already hit that button and that bell thing, then do it right now. What have you got to lose? Nothing, that's what. What have you got to gain? Everything. But I'm incredibly overwhelmed because to be perfectly frank, I never thought we'd get anywhere near this far into the whole YouTube game, especially with such a focused niche. So as a result, we are going to be breaking our one piece focus for this video. Don't worry though, it will be back soon. And in copious amounts, I assure you that. But to mark this occasion, I wanted to let you all in on the back end of this channel for a bit. And quite specifically, I am going to be going through some of my biggest YouTube regrets, which I know doesn't sound particularly celebratory, but I wanted to do something a bit different than just like a thank you video or a Q&A. And maybe if some of you were considering starting a channel or even have channels already, then this may help you not fall into some of the many, many, many holes that I did. And also stay tuned because after I go through my biggest regrets on this platform, I'm also going to drop what I would describe as the one crowning feature of this channel success. Something I did that a lot of my contemporaries will disagree with, but I just don't think I would be here today without it. So look forward to that. All right, long rambling intro over. Let's get into my first biggest regret, which is simply not starting YouTube earlier. Now I'm sure many of you all have heard this from other creators, and that's because with the benefit of hindsight, it's an extraordinarily easy thing to say. Looking at where this channel is now, it's a no brainer to go, oh man, I really should have been working towards this ever since like 2006 or something. But it's a really tricky one because who knows what would have happened. If I'd started this channel way earlier without the various bits of life experience I acquired, then maybe things would have just crashed and burned or not even taken off to begin with. However, in this case, I do have a very specific regret because if you look at when Grand Line Review was created, that date would be January 11th, 2015. That is when I first had the desire to start making one piece based content on YouTube. So I made the channel, and then I did absolutely nothing with it for like a year. And then I did actually start making videos but gave up after a couple of months. And it was really only in 2017 that I began to properly invest my time and energy into making videos. And I can't help but strongly wish that I had that desire when I first came up with the idea in 2015. And here's why I didn't do it summarized into one lovely yet annoying word, excuses. I didn't think I was capable of engaging in a time consuming hobby like YouTube, along with working full time and attempting to have some kind of social life, not a great social life because I'm a profound introvert, but still. And I know for a fact that it was just a pile of excuses now because I have done it. Prior to the global apocalypse thing, I was working full time and managing the Grand Line Review, which isn't to say that I'm some kind of amazing being, it's actually quite the opposite. It's more to say that if even someone like me can do it, then you absolutely can. If you have the drive to start a YouTube channel or you know what, if you have the drive to do anything, then just get over the excuses. The human mind and body are capable of so much more than it gets credit for. So put it to use and just do it. Do not be like me and procrastinate for a total of two years before finally having the determination to go for it. All right, cool. Now that that's out of the way, another huge regret I have is not doing enough research. And that might sound kind of vague and that's because it is. There is a phenomenal amount to consider when it comes to making even the simplest of videos. And one of my biggest issues was definitely not watching enough videos made by people who were and are currently sharing my niche at the time. Other One Piece and or General Anime YouTubers basically. And this is a trap I fell into because part of the desire to begin the Grand Line Review spawned from the idea that I wasn't interested in watching other One Piece videos. And that was really annoying because this series was one of my greatest passions and the creators of the time weren't scratching that particular itch for me. So in response, I quite foolishly decided that I had no need to really research them because I did not want to be like them. However, as a result, I missed out on a lot of really basic information that I could have easily gathered. Really simple stuff like acceptable audio quality are allowed to make your music. What kind of topics generate the most interest for viewers? What kind of video techniques were being utilized at OneFaceCams? How people were crafting their thumbnails? All of this information was readily available and I ignored it. And so I began creating videos with no standard of comparison. So of course, in my early days, this led to a lot of issues like my music being far too loud, my voice being too slow and droney and just boring. My thumbnails being the epitome of abysmal and yeah. Honestly, there are just not a lot of redeeming factors about Early Grand Line Review, which is a stage I feel like I could have avoided completely with just a little bit of willingness to cast my gaze a bit further into the realm of research. And to be clear, that doesn't mean copying what other people do. It just means critically analyzing their work. Ask yourself what they do, how they do it and how that affects people watching. And then even if you end up doing something completely different, then at least you have a basis for something rather than just blindly wandering around in the dark like I did. Now my third most profound regret on YouTube is something I still do to this day, which is saying it's good enough. If you have ever mentally or verbally told yourself that something you've made as quote unquote, good enough, then the overwhelming probability is that it is not in fact, good enough. Because saying that to me is like admitting defeat. It's like stating, yeah, this could be better, but I don't have the time or energy to make it better. And I do that a lot more than I'd like to admit, especially when it comes to thumbnails. In my process, which is changing now, thumbnails were typically the last thing I tended to make for a video, which is utter madness because they're usually far more important than the actual video itself. You know, if nobody wants to click your thumbnail, then the video itself does become worthless. And I try not to slip into that mindset these days and just keep pushing until I land on a thumbnail that I feel would entice me to click. But I've made some utter, utter garbage over the course of this channel's life, which is most apparent when you look at the Sargas in Minutes series. I mean, I've recently changed the thumbnails for all of these, but thank you to everyone who clicked on these early thumbnails because when I look back at these, I just go, oh, who in their right mind would click on that? They're cluttered, the font is weird and there's nothing to like really grip you. And that's because I made these and I said good enough, then proceeded to pump them out. The mistake which I think I began to rectify near the end of the Sargas in Minutes series where I just enacted the mindset of don't produce thumbnail that you yourself would not click on. But even then, there are still times when I go good enough in every aspect of video making and I suppose just be aware of any time you say or think that to yourself because it is a huge, huge, huge creative red flag. As for my fourth mega regret in this film, it would be not investing in decent equipment earlier, quite specifically a microphone and some acoustic foam. Because the truth is you don't really need a whole lot of fancy stuff to do what I do on this channel, but when I began, I didn't even have that. And you know what? I had no drive to actually acquire those things because I was stuck in yet another mental trap. And you know what? Here's a fun story that relates to this topic pretty heavily which is that one of my best friends one day decided to begin a YouTube channel of his own focusing on Magic the Gathering. And the general concept is that he would go through deck ideas and commentate on his games which he was good at. He was actually really good at it because he's insanely intelligent. He had his pulse on this very niche topic and he even had a side of wit to add on top of it. But he was using an inbuilt microphone to record his audio. And as a result, no matter what substance was coming out of his mouth, it was frequently peaking, highly distorted and it just didn't sound good. So I told him that the one thing he really needed to do immediately was invest in a proper microphone. And his response was, yeah, I'll buy a microphone if this channel starts to become successful. And that drove me insane because that is the complete opposite mindset you need. Like I can practically guarantee anybody that in this day and age on YouTube, you will not become quote unquote successful without at least, at least an entry level microphone. Not doing the sort of thing we were doing anyway. But at the same time, I'm also a bit of a hypocrite there because that was my mindset as well. In the very early days of Grand Line Review, I thought to myself, yeah, I'm just making these videos as a hobby. And if they take off, then that's great. That's when I'll invest in something. Which is fine, but I really do wish that I'd not wasted like a whole year or so in this channel using a pathetic microphone because when I did finally switch to something halfway decent, that's when the Grand Line Review really started to explode and became much more popular. Probably because people could actually stand listening to me now. And so if you think that your YouTube videos are just a hobby, I understand that. But I would strongly encourage you to invest in your hobby. You know, it's pretty difficult to collect Pokemon cards without buying the cards or engaging in woodwork without woodworking tools. Similarly, it's very hard to make YouTube videos without proper recording gear, for example. So even if it's just something you do for fun, make it more fun for yourself by getting some reasonably priced equipment to help you. All right, that turned into a long and rambling one. So my next regret, regret number five, if you will, would be that very brief period where I tried to do videos seven days a week on Grand Line Review. And I don't know how many of you will actually remember this time. It was about a year and a half ago now where I published one video every day for about a month and a half. And the theory behind it was my videos were doing great. On average, they were bringing in around 24,000 views in 24 hours, which was a nice handy metric I used. But I was only posting between three to four videos a week. So in my rudimentary thinking, I figured that if I doubled the amount of videos I posted, then that would effectively double my views, which would double my revenue, right? Well, surprisingly, not only was it not right, it was actually very, very wrong. After a couple of weeks of implementing the strategy, I noticed that my average was sinking to around 18,000 views in 24 hours. And while the money I was earning did go up, it was a very, very incremental amount of growth. And after speaking to a fair few people, it became apparent to me that I was flooding my audience with content, which was probably great for the more core viewers of the channel, but it meant that there was so much coming out that people simply could not keep up with it all. Which had some more long-term ramifications because if someone doesn't click your video a couple of times in a row, then YouTube will be far less likely to recommend those videos to them in the future. So I made the kind of painful decision to go back to publishing three to four times a week, but the damage had already been done by then. And it was quite a long journey to get things back to where they were before I changed up the schedule. So I discovered what the critical mass for my videos were the hard way. And then instead of making stuff seven days a week on Grand Line Review, I made a new channel for other series in general called New World Review. So I do still effectively publish seven days a week just over two channels, which keeps them both healthy, but not overly saturated. And speaking of my final regret for this video has to do with my second channel, which was the decision to name it New World Review. So to all of you, the reasoning behind that name is probably pretty obvious. I mean, when I was thinking about how to expand this brand, it made all the sense in the world to name a second channel after the second half of the Grand Line. It's kind of perfect, isn't it? However, what I really, really should have thought more about was the idea that this channel was designed to cover literally any series that wasn't One Piece. So New World Review is actually an incredibly meaningless name for anyone who goes there without any knowledge of One Piece. But the worst part is, even if they are a fan of One Piece, it's very confusing because it has a One Piece based name, but no One Piece content. So it's bad all around. So as much as I do like the name and how it blends with Grand Line Review, it was far from the smartest idea. And I do wish that I could go back in time and change it. But to top off this regret filled day, let's have a positive. The one thing I feel like I really nailed with the whole YouTube thing, which I suspect many other YouTubers will disagree with, but that is keeping the Grand Line Review focused exclusively on One Piece. Over the years, I've had a lot of people ask me why I made a second channel for other series when I already had an established audience here. And that's because I really believe in the power of niche. I really like the idea that everyone who comes to this channel will potentially be interested in every single video it features because it's all One Piece based. I think it's a much more solid proposition than trying to cover multiple series like if the Grand Line Review featured One Piece, Bleach, Hunter, Hunter, whatever, it would become far more general. But I think that this laser-like focus on One Piece was super valuable in the early days because despite the fact that I was making bad videos, some amazingly rare people were finding and watching them anyway. And those people would then go through the channel library, which helped push out videos to more people, whereas if I'd split my focus, that growth may not have happened. Someone may have come to the channel and enjoyed a One Piece based video, but not clicked on any of the others because they weren't keen for the other series being featured or even not subscribed because they didn't want, say, Hunter, Hunter content, clogging up their recommendations when all they came to me for was One Piece. I wholeheartedly believe that it made it a lot easier for this channel to grow. And I'm sure a lot of people will point to figures like, say, Tekking or NoxTaku, who have gigantic audiences with a base in covering multiple series, but it's not a direct comparison because they can drive that kind of engine based on pure personality. It's a very different value proposition. And while the reality of that situation means that a channel like Groundline Review will be highly unlikely to reach their levels of views and subscribers, I honestly don't think I'd even be here today if I'd spread my focus across multiple series instead of just providing a solid injection of pure One Piece onto this platform. So I think that was absolutely the greatest decision that I've made in regards to the Groundline Review, accompanied by very, very many regrets, but there's nothing wrong with that. Very few people conduct themselves in any first-time venture with flawless execution and learning a lot of these lessons the very hard way will ensure that at the very least, I never forget them. So take my mistakes and hopefully it's provided some insight for your own endeavors. But what do you guys think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this, except probably not exactly like this, then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious One Piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. But for now, this has been the Groundline Review and I'll see you next time.