 So my first YouTube paycheck was from Roll. Hello you guys, what is up? So for today's video I'm gonna let you guys know what I got on my first YouTube paycheck since being monetized and I'm just gonna give you guys a little bit of an insight and how hard it was, what went down, how I got that check, how I made that bank and all of that good shit, so stick around. It is currently January, no, it is February, not January, God, this year's already going by fast. It's already February, 2021 and I started my channel, let me give you guys the exact date here. So the exact date that I posted my first video is December 13th, 2018. Wow, it's been three years. So I started in December of 2018 and I got my first YouTube paycheck on August 24 of 2020. So it took me a year and a half. So the day that I got my first paycheck wasn't really around the time that I first got monetized. I actually got monetized at the beginning of 2020 but I just didn't get paid until August of 2020. Once you get monetized, YouTube will send you something that looks like this inside of this envelope. It has like a code and everything. So what you have to do with that is you go in your YouTube account and you verify with the code that it's you, that it's your address and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I got to input all of your information. So I took a long time to do that. YouTube actually sent me the check right away. It only took, I don't exactly remember two to four weeks to get that check after being monetized. But I didn't get to entering it until a few months afterwards just because I was on a trip and then for some reason the website wasn't working, I couldn't figure it out. And I wasn't really in a rush because I knew that the money that I was making, it was just going into my account. Even though I wasn't getting paid right away, they didn't really worry me at all. So it took me about a year to get monetized. For some people, it takes them longer, for some people it takes them a shorter amount of time. It literally just depends on how fast your channel grows. For me, it was obviously a long time. Some people could get monetized within a month. You just have to be kind of lucky to get a viral video and then you would get monetized right away because in order to get monetized you need 4,000 watch hours and I believe it's 1,000 subscribers. So it took me like so, so, so, so long to get that. 4,000 watch hours, it doesn't seem like a lot, but it's hard. So basically if someone watches your video for 10 minutes, that 10 minutes it's put towards that 4,000 watch hours. I don't know what exactly to explain the watch hour thing but that's what it is. 4,000 is hard, it takes effort, it takes work. But then once you get there things are more smooth sailing. But yeah, it did take me a long time and I don't think YouTube used to be like this, but now it is so it's something you gotta deal with and it just honestly could be the most draining thing ever because for the longest time I was stuck at 80 subscribers because when I first made my channel I wanted to keep it more private because I don't really like starting something and then putting it out there and telling everyone and then what if I didn't go through with it and then it's just kind of like embarrassing like, oh shit, like yeah. So I kind of wanted to keep it low key until I knew I was gonna be consistent and just kind of figured my knee shell, figured all the kind of videos I wanted to make. I wanted to keep it low key. So I only told like my close friends and my family knew and that was it. Like I didn't put it anywhere on my social media. I didn't post anything on Instagram, a Snapchat. So that's why it took me so long to reach 1,000 subscribers was because I grew 100% organically. I didn't spread the word about my channel at all. So these were all just random people that had subscribed to me. Even to this day I haven't even put it on my Instagram or anything that I have a YouTube channel. I'm still keeping it like low key just because I don't know, I just like keeping things more low key. I reached 1,000 subscribers before I reached 4,000 watch hours. Probably like a month, like I reached 1,000 and then a month later I got monetized. But it does take time and it is very, very discouraging. Let me tell you, when you are stuck at 80 subscribers I swear like I know the feeling, I know the feeling but you just gotta keep going and you just gotta make videos and act like you have millions of viewers because once you do that then you're not gonna care what people think you're gonna be yourself more. That's just what you gotta do. You just gotta pretend like you have it and it'll come, don't let that get in the way. If every time you go to make a video you're like ew, like ugh, I don't want to then it's probably not for you. I would suggest if you guys are first making a channel to kinda keep things low key and just figure it out, figure out what your niche is, figure out what videos you wanna post before kinda spreading the word too much about it and then you can really figure out if you really like it. Okay, so that brings me to my actual, this isn't even my YouTube direct for some reason. I thought that this was like my first YouTube check but it's not, this just has my code in it. So basically, once you enter that code in you put it up and then they accept you and then you could go in and enter your banking information, I get my check sent to me just like goes right into my account, a direct deposit. So yeah, I literally just get my checks every single month. The thing is though, is that there's a $100 threshold each month. Let's say if I made $50 only, then it wouldn't pay me for this month and it would wait and accumulate until I reach that $100 threshold to pay me. So if you made less than $100, you will not get a check that month. It'll just accumulate and then once you reach that $100 threshold, then it'll pay you for that for those months. In the beginning I've had had like one month I think where I didn't reach that $100 threshold. So that month I didn't get a check but I'm pretty sure every like other month besides that I've gotten a check. Yeah, so I have had my channel for three years but I haven't been consistent for three years. At the beginning I was posting maybe once a week and then I went completely off the grid for like a few months because I was in school and it was just a lot. I probably didn't post for like four or five months and then I went back on the way in and then I was just, I was never consistent. Like I've only been consistent now for maybe like a month but before that those three years I was never consistent. Now that I am consistent, I'm noticing a lot more benefits that are coming out of that. My number one tip for you is just be consistent because good things will come out of that. You'll get more views, you'll get more watch hours and if you keep posting and posting YouTube it's gonna be like, oh my God, this person's posting so you wanna push their videos out more. So my first YouTube paycheck was from Rolls. 940 dollars in something sense. I'll put the exact amount right here but that was accumulated over three months since I got monetized. So that's why it's a lot of money at once. But yeah, so that was my first paycheck. I don't wanna brag at all. I'm just literally doing this for educational purposes and obviously people who are out there who wanna start a channel are probably curious like how much did you make? Also when you guys continue to grow you will get other streams of incomes like brands messaging you and offering you products, getting brand deals and all of that so the revenue that you get from YouTube is definitely not gonna be your highest paying revenue. When I first posted my first video I didn't really know anything about it and then I was like, how do you actually get paid from this? So then I really started getting curious and then I realized you actually need 4,000 watch hours which is a lot. So the thing about having 4,000 hours of watch time you actually need to keep that up every single year in order to stay monetized or YouTube will be like yeet and they'll take that away from you. But let me tell you, once you get on the saddle you get on your horse and you start riding down the Sunset Boulevard. 4,000 is like a piece of cake. I think I get more than 4,000 hours of watch time per month now which is crazy because it took me so long. It took me a year to get that 4,000 and now I'm getting more than that every month. The reason why you're getting paid and the reason why you're getting monetized is because YouTube runs ads on your videos. These ads you can't choose them. They're out of your control. Like when you do a brand deal you get to talk with a brand. You get to build a relationship with the brand and that's great. But when it comes to this YouTube monetization YouTube is just putting ads on your video but you do get to control where your ads are placed in your videos. So if your video is longer than eight minutes YouTube allows you to put ads in the middle of your video. It used to be if your video was 10 minutes long but YouTube like made it shorter which is good. So now it's eight minutes long. You get to put ads in the middle. Obviously you don't wanna put too many or that's really annoying but having those ads in the middle of the videos definitely does make a huge difference for income. I would suggest to make all of your videos eight minutes or longer. I think that is the perfect length. Eight to 13 minutes is probably the sweet spot. That's what I like to make my videos. Sometimes obviously one will go longer but I don't think I've ever posted a video less than eight minutes or not at least in a while. So I definitely suggest making your videos over eight minutes. Yeah, so the way that YouTube is working recently has been a little weird. Like a lot of the big YouTubers have been talking about it how YouTube is like a little crazy now and it's really hard to get on YouTube's good side but right now I'm just kind of focusing on my consistency and my watch time because watch time has become very important ladies and gentlemen. So basically what your watch time is how long someone watch your video for. So if they watch your video for two minutes and click off that tells YouTube this wasn't a good video because they only watched two minutes of it. So then YouTube is gonna be like we're gonna pull your video back and not promote it because people are only watching two minutes of it so it must be a shit video and that's all good. So you need to make people stay during your videos. I am so struggling to do that. You just gotta keep people enticed. You gotta keep them wanting more of you. That is the key because now that YouTube's algorithm is a little funky. You gotta make sure that you're adapting to that and you will eventually reach 4,000 watch hours and your channel will grow, okay? You got this. Do not give up. Just remember that everyone starts out with zero subscribers. Yeah, I know I'm not the biggest YouTuber. This video may be irrelevant to you but I thought that I'd share my knowledge that I have here at 8,000 subscribers and what's gotten me here. So yeah, if you guys want like any other channel tips or how to grow your channel I can like speak for hours on this because I've been doing this for three years apparently. I didn't even realize it was three years. If you guys want any more tips or whatever leave it down below in the comments. Any video requests, what you guys wanna see from me. And yeah, thank you guys so much for watching this video. Sorry if it was a little bit rambly. I just wanted to get as much information in there as possible. But yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Subscribe for more content and like it if you wanna see more videos like this. Yeah, thank you guys so much for watching. I love you guys so much. Peace out. Mm.