Is YouTube a good business to start for a 14 year old?

[Gubolo]

I am 14 years old (2008) and I have been on the kind of self-improvement and money making mindset for around 9 months now. I have thought and researched different kinds of business models, but never really taken any real action. I go to school for 6 hours every day and go the gym 6 days a week which in total takes up around 2-3 hours of my day. My original plan with yt was to post informational videos in the self-improvement genre, mostly just about going to the gym. Now I'm thinking that it may not be the best idea since I'm 14 and people might think the information I'm giving is unreliable. I still think making videos about working out would be a good idea since I spend a lot of time doing it and know a lot about it compared to other things. I thought YT would be a good business to start for me since it doesnt require a lot of startup capital and if I don't have time to tend to it because of school I wont have a bunch of angry clients breathing down my neck like with other business models.
Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for the kind of videos or niches someone could succeed with at my age? Maybe a YT channel isn't a good idea at all and I should just focus on building skills like I was just getting into before thinking about starting any sort of business.
If you guys's answer is going to be something like ''just get a job for the time being'' I'm trying. My mom knows a guy who has started several businesses and sold them. One for around $10m I think. In school we have this thing where we are supposed to work at a place work 3 days. I am going to this guy my mom knows, and maybe I can get a summer job if I work well.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DreamLund]

I am 14 years old (2008) and I have been on the kind of self-improvement and money making mindset for around 9 months now. I have thought and researched different kinds of business models, but never really taken any real action. I go to school for 6 hours every day and go the gym 6 days a week which in total takes up around 2-3 hours of my day. My original plan with yt was to post informational videos in the self-improvement genre, mostly just about going to the gym. Now I'm thinking that it may not be the best idea since I'm 14 and people might think the information I'm giving is unreliable. I still think making videos about working out would be a good idea since I spend a lot of time doing it and know a lot about it compared to other things. I thought YT would be a good business to start for me since it doesnt require a lot of startup capital and if I don't have time to tend to it because of school I wont have a bunch of angry clients breathing down my neck like with other business models.
Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for the kind of videos or niches someone could succeed with at my age? Maybe a YT channel isn't a good idea at all and I should just focus on building skills like I was just getting into before thinking about starting any sort of business.
If you guys's answer is going to be something like ''just get a job for the time being'' I'm trying. My mom knows a guy who has started several businesses and sold them. One for around $10m I think. In school we have this thing where we are supposed to work at a place work 3 days. I am going to this guy my mom knows, and maybe I can get a summer job if I work well.

I actually like your idea and mindset Gubolo
Take my reply below with a grain of salt and make your own decisions because no one knows you better than, you.

If you can commit to a LONG grind, with no viewers while ignoring the bullshit comments people can write.
Showing up every single day with the mindset that you want to LEARN the skills that will be required to improve. Example: Prepare Scripts for your videos, Editing, Planning, Being on camera.
If yes, then you should consider going for it!

You are on a really great path this early in life and I wish you the best of luck!

 

[Gubolo]

Im of course not expecting to blow up and start making money any time soon. I want to make videos and get better and better over time.

 

[Gubolo]

I actually like your idea and mindset Gubolo
Take my reply below with a grain of salt and make your own decisions because no one knows you better than, you.

If you can commit to a LONG grind, with no viewers while ignoring the bullshit comments people can write.
Showing up every single day with the mindset that you want to LEARN the skills that will be required to improve.
For example: Prepare Scripts for your videos, Editing, Planning, Being on camera.

You are on a really great path this early in life and I wish you the best of luck!

I think also youtube would be a thing I could kind of enjoy. When I have thought about other businesses like dropshipping it has just been scary and I have procrastinated getting started. When I start writing a script for a vid a bunch of information just starts pouring out from my head and I feel invested in providing the viewer with value.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[StrikingViper69]

How are you going to help people in a way that someone isn't doing at the moment? When you go on YouTube, your competition is the biggest names in the fitness industry. There is no way you can compete. If I goto YouTube looking for fitness info, am I going to watch a video by a 14yo, or by a guy who's been teaching fitness for 14 years?

So what can you compete on? At 14 you won't know more than others, but you have time to work on things. The summer job is a great idea to get experience.

Things that could work well are things like lawn mowing, drive way washing, window washing, car washing etc. Simple service jobs where you're effectively self employed and finding your own customers.

You'll make more in month walking round town with a shovel and clearing drives than you will on youtube in 10 years.

If you're getting results from the gym, you could try and do a deal to sell gym memberships to the kids at your school and get a cut. Start a training club, organise some competitions, get the school to pay for the memberships by showing how it increases the competitiveness of the school athletes, sell to the athletes that want to do better, show parents how fitness increases mental sharpness and hence grades and get them to pay for the memberships etc.

Start a school paper (physical paper) and put an article or two in there targeting a different group of kids each week selling them on the gym.

Rather than thinking "YouTube", think "is there someone down the road I can help, and how?".

 

[Levit]

Starting a channel could be a great way to build an audience you can market to later. Maybe think about the type of audience you'd like to serve and add value to with a business, research them and get to know them intimately, and you can start making content aimed at them. Make a start and learn as you go. From there, you can learn more about their problems and how you can develop solutions to them and sell those solutions as products once you've built trust with that audience.

You've got nothing to lose, and you clearly have a very good head on your shoulders for a kid your age. I wish I'd discovered this mindset at your age. Being that young and healthy is like having 100 billion dollars in the bank, make hay while the sun shines my friend.

 

[Saad Khan]

Make 100 shorts. Then pitch business owners to edit their long, boring videos into bite sized, attention grabbing shorts and tiktoks.

The channel would be your portfolio in that case.

Your goal for the next 3 days:

Make 1 video. Don't focus on the script like your life depends on it. Make the video with the intention of improving your skills.

Take action. No more procrastinating. You're an action taker now

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Patryk.]

"How are you going to help people in a way that someone isn't doing at the moment? When you go on YouTube, your competition is the biggest names in the fitness industry. There is no way you can compete. If I goto YouTube looking for fitness info, am I going to watch a video by a 14yo, or by a guy who's been teaching fitness for 14 years?"

I thought the same some time ago. But that's wrong. Yeah, the people who have 14y of experience are better because they have that "experience". But they lack one important thing.

The audience can't relate to them. But they can relate to a 14y boy because they are too 14y old. They can relate to you instead to them because of yours "uniques", "familiarity".

YT is a great marketing platform. Do it.

 

[Matt Lee]

I'm 14 and people might think the information I'm giving is unreliable.

**Warning this post will be long AF**(no jokes intended)

Your target audience and how to position your content are everything.​

From the perspective of someone in their 20-40+ years old, your videos might be a big stretch.

But what if you can make content specifically for people around your age? Now that's where it gets interesting.

How credible and relatable can you be if your content was just to some kid down the street the same age as you with the same problem your video solves? You're currently 14, so you know that market better than a lot of us on this forum. You have certain problems you struggle with that someone in their 20s or 30s might not know. Your pain is still fresh in your mind.

If you have a problem and you can solve it, chances are you can iterate that solution for someone else if you package it in an effective and easily digestible way(positioning/marketing).

HOW?!

The question then becomes how can you create titles, thumbnails, and content that speaks to these people.

You can find the answer by answering questions like:

What is their attention span like? What do they find funny? What do they desire? What problems do they have? What do they think about often? What keeps them up at night? Or how do I learn how to make videos(JK. This is technical stuff you will learn along the way, I won't address it here)

Some examples could be titles being: ​

I did ____ as a 14-year-old and it changed my life--> target audience will be people around 14 years old
How I ___ as a 14-year-old--> same thing.

If you want a broader audience for people around your age, replace "14-year-old" with "teenager". If you want to add variables and make your video more of a story, add time-related keywords to your titles.

I did ____ for ___ days as a 14-year-old(or teenager) and it changed my life--> frame the viewer to think that there's a before and after journey if they click on the video.

key: notice how all of the titles imply some benefit for the viewer. You better deliver on the benefits in the video.

What is their attention span like?​

You'd probably have to make cuts every 2-3 seconds and add in SFX/music to hold their attention. Most people nowadays have the attention span of fleas because of social media and other sources of stimulation.

You'd also probably have to learn how to tell the story that creates open loops and keep the viewers engage.

Example of a portion of a long-form video script...

Title: Why you can't Focus as a teenager

So recently, I can't seem to focus. I can't finish my homework. I can't even read this book for 20 minutes. I can't even talk to my friends and look at them in the eyes. WTF IS GOING ON! (open loop--> viewer asks why are you having trouble? What are you doing?)

Every time I sit down, my eyes start to wander around the room. I start searching for my phone(insert B-roll with phone+social media SFX). I look at my TV screen(insert TV switch on sfx). I start thinking about scrolling through social media... even though I know it's bad for me(have social media SFX stack on top of each other)...(close the loop)

But then I realize this has been happening for a while now... EVERY TIME I TRY TO DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT! (open loop again --> What created the realization?)

So for the past 7 days, I've been trying to figure out why I can't focus. How can I focus better? What are the things preventing me from focusing? (open loop again --> What did you do? Sets the stage for a story.)

I found out that some reasons range from my diet being too high in sugar(insert studies you found), not getting enough sleep(another study), to my brain being too overstimulated(show yourself or a b-roll of a guy looking at his phone). (close those loops)

But the thing is... while these 3 things made sense and probably contributed to my problem. As I got deeper into my research, I realize that these things... were just the tip of the iceberg!(music intesifies)... (open loop/hook --> WTF are the other things?)

What do they find funny?​

Memes, self-deprecating jokes, irony, contradictions, any relevant movies/trends, etc. Between serious points, break the flow with a meme or a joke. Learn what "edutainment" is.

What do they desire?​

Money, social confidence, beating procrastination, becoming popular, better dating life, and feeling a sense of community(fitting in).

What problems do they have? ​

Social anxiety, don't know how to make money, hate school, pornography usage, gaming, feeling directionless, overstimulation, no good role models

What do they think about often? ​

How can they get more attention, how can they stop feeling certain emotions(uselessness, directionless, shyness, awkwardness, low energy), how to level up as a person as fast and quickly as possible, what is the secret or pill that they don't know, How can they build the courage to... talk to Sussie, build a something(like a youtube channel), improve their lives in some type of way

What keeps them up at night? ​

Insecurities, not doing what they know they should do, not seeing the results they want, feeling like they're wasting their lives away...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm rifting this off the top of my head. But take the time to answer these questions and I'm sure you know what content you want to make and how you should make them. The last thing I will say is this.

Age is not a problem. If you make money, just ask your parents to hold onto it. There are plenty of opportunities someone your age has that someone much older does not. You will lose these opportunities if you wait to get older... and sure you could argue that by then new opportunities will replace the old ones.

But you will have lost a few precious years of your life waiting to get older.

Do you know what regrets most people have as they get older? It's that they didn't start sooner.

Many people wait to feel ready or become old enough or fit some societal permission check box to start. But the reality is, there is always more checkbox to fill out as you get older. More responsibility and more commitment. You're in school. You're in college. You got a mortgage. A baby is coming. You're now in your 40s.

Don't wait...

If you think content creation is something that is worth investing your time into, go and do it. Expect to suck. Expect it to not make sense at first. Expect most people to cringe when they watch your things. Hell, you will cringe rewatching your videos a year from now.

But if you stick it for a year or two consistently, I'm sure you'll be quite a beast and thankful that you just went ahead and do what you thought made sense

 

[Gubolo]

I am 14 years old (2008) and I have been on the kind of self-improvement and money making mindset for around 9 months now. I have thought and researched different kinds of business models, but never really taken any real action. I go to school for 6 hours every day and go the gym 6 days a week which in total takes up around 2-3 hours of my day. My original plan with yt was to post informational videos in the self-improvement genre, mostly just about going to the gym. Now I'm thinking that it may not be the best idea since I'm 14 and people might think the information I'm giving is unreliable. I still think making videos about working out would be a good idea since I spend a lot of time doing it and know a lot about it compared to other things. I thought YT would be a good business to start for me since it doesnt require a lot of startup capital and if I don't have time to tend to it because of school I wont have a bunch of angry clients breathing down my neck like with other business models.
Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for the kind of videos or niches someone could succeed with at my age? Maybe a YT channel isn't a good idea at all and I should just focus on building skills like I was just getting into before thinking about starting any sort of business.
If you guys's answer is going to be something like ''just get a job for the time being'' I'm trying. My mom knows a guy who has started several businesses and sold them. One for around $10m I think. In school we have this thing where we are supposed to work at a place work 3 days. I am going to this guy my mom knows, and maybe I can get a summer job if I work well.

I know that I will suck and the competition will be huge. If I am going to be honest I just want to find my path and take action towards becoming an entrepreneur.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Levit]

I know that I will suck and the competition will be huge. If I am going to be honest I just want to find my path and take action towards becoming an entrepreneur.

Don't even worry about that at all. I know it's hard to have that perspective right now, but right now with age on your side, now is the time to make as much as you can. It doesn't matter if 99% of it does suck. You have a licence to make every possible mistake and get credit just for trying while you're young.

My advice would be to start making as much stuff as possible, doesn't matter if it sucks or not. Accept a lot of it probably will because you're just starting out, don't be attached to it being good.

Let me share a little parable that's almost cliche at this point, but I still love it:

A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

 

[Akaushra]

I'm in a pretty similar boat. Great Q and great replies everyone.

 

[Gubolo]

I am 14 years old (2008) and I have been on the kind of self-improvement and money making mindset for around 9 months now. I have thought and researched different kinds of business models, but never really taken any real action. I go to school for 6 hours every day and go the gym 6 days a week which in total takes up around 2-3 hours of my day. My original plan with yt was to post informational videos in the self-improvement genre, mostly just about going to the gym. Now I'm thinking that it may not be the best idea since I'm 14 and people might think the information I'm giving is unreliable. I still think making videos about working out would be a good idea since I spend a lot of time doing it and know a lot about it compared to other things. I thought YT would be a good business to start for me since it doesnt require a lot of startup capital and if I don't have time to tend to it because of school I wont have a bunch of angry clients breathing down my neck like with other business models.
Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for the kind of videos or niches someone could succeed with at my age? Maybe a YT channel isn't a good idea at all and I should just focus on building skills like I was just getting into before thinking about starting any sort of business.
If you guys's answer is going to be something like ''just get a job for the time being'' I'm trying. My mom knows a guy who has started several businesses and sold them. One for around $10m I think. In school we have this thing where we are supposed to work at a place work 3 days. I am going to this guy my mom knows, and maybe I can get a summer job if I work well.

Before I thought about this youtube idea, my plan was to learn coding. I haven't done it for long and haven't gotten very far. I don't know if I want to drop this skill learning process entirely.

Maybe I could combine learning how to code and youtube. I could maybe make videos documenting the process of learning coding. Is it a good idea to try and do both of these things at once or should I just focus on one?

Could content creation / video editing and programming / coding be a valuable combination of skills or would I be better of just focusing on getting good at one of them. Or is the idea above with combining them and making videos with learning coding a good idea?

Maybe I sound like a wantrepreneur who is afraid of taking action and overthinking. I'm just afraid of wasting too much of my time on the wrong thing.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Coolledge]

Before I thought about this youtube idea, my plan was to learn coding. I haven't done it for long and haven't gotten very far. I don't know if I want to drop this skill learning process entirely.

Maybe I could combine learning how to code and youtube. I could maybe make videos documenting the process of learning coding. Is it a good idea to try and do both of these things at once or should I just focus on one?

Could content creation / video editing and programming / coding be a valuable combination of skills or would I be better of just focusing on getting good at one of them. Or is the idea above with combining them and making videos with learning coding a good idea?

Maybe I sound like a wantrepreneur who is afraid of taking action and overthinking. I'm just afraid of wasting too much of my time on the wrong thing.

Taking action and failing, is better than taking no action and not knowing.

Its very rare that people strike lucky with their first business, but what they do with the knowledge they learn helps them to grow in their next venture. Youre at a very good advantage whilst you are young and your brain absorbs information faster than when you grow older (i feel like i've read that somewhere). So, look at your target market, find what they like (research, perhaps look at competitors and see what videos they do and the ones with more likes, comments versus the ones that theyre failing on). Theres a lot of great advice in this thread, but without action (even small, every step is a step forward) you'll never know. I think youve already taken your first step by reaching out here.

 

[James Klymus]

Don't over think it, Do it now. When you're 24, And you've been making videos for 10+ years, You'll be glad you started at 14.