Loading summary
A
Yeah, I think that there are a couple of questions that you can ask yourself. In general, I like to think about. Okay, like what? What are things that you really like to do? What are identities that you prescribe to? What are things that you are particularly good at? And what are things that other people say that you are particularly good at?
B
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's conversation on the Creator's Hub podcast. I have another wonderful guest joining me today. Today I'm joined by Aprilyn Alter. She is a creator and educator who learns side with her audience to uncover what it takes to be successful on YouTube. After leaving a finance career that didn't align with her aspirations, April Lynn launched her first YouTube channel in 2021, followed by a second in April of 2023. Now she shares content that uniquely blends in depth tactical YouTube strategies with more vulnerable chicken soup for the YouTuber's soul. April Lynn, how are you doing today?
A
Doing great. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.
B
Yep, really looking forward to it. I've got a lot of questions that I want to ask you, but before we kind of dive deep into that stuff, I do want to ask back in 2021, how did this whole thing start? What was the origin story of the YouTube channel?
A
Yeah. So long story short, left my last full time job, I gave myself one year to see what I could do on my own before I would go back and try to find another job. I was doing a bunch of different things at the time. I was starting a startup of my own at that point in like the hiring industry. And one startup friend of mine told me, hey, if you want to build startups, you should go on Twitter because that's where a lot of the startup people are. So I'm like, okay, I got a Twitter account. I started making tweets, as they were called back in the days before X. And someone came across my feed who was Ali Abdul. And I actually listened to a podcast episode featuring Ali and he was breaking down his business. And that was the very first time I realized that you could be an educator on YouTube. Previously I had only watched YouTube here and there, mostly just for like how to change a tire, how to tie a tie, very simple, one time use cases. But beyond that, I thought YouTube was just Mr. Beast or Emma Chamberlain, like large scale productions or personal vlogs. And I never thought of myself as particularly entertaining at all. So I thought YouTube has no place for me. But listening to Ali talk about his business and how it's grown so much, I realized, oh, one, you can educate on YouTube, and I've always been an educator at heart. And two, you can make a pretty serious living. It's almost like a business. It is a business in and of itself. And so that's when I first started making YouTube videos, way back in 2021.
B
I love that. I love. I love Ali Abdaal. He's one of my favorite productivity. I've referenced him many times here on the podcast. So it's interesting to hear you talk about that. Um, you did a video a few days ago, a little less than a week, week ago. And the title is breaking down my $290,000 year on YouTube. And then in parentheses you put real numbers, so obviously you're seeing some success. Your channel, the one that I'm looking at, I don't know about the second one, but the. The main channel that I'm looking at has right at 131,000 subscribers with just 44 videos uploaded. I want to ask you, I guess the question that I want to ask you now is why do you think your channel took off like it did? Being that you're not uploading every day or even every week, what advice can you give people listening of things that, you know, took your channel to where it is now?
A
Yeah, my upload schedule is so baffling to a lot of people who look at it from the outside because it is non conventional whatsoever. I upload so rarely. I think last year was the most consistent I've been in a while and I uploaded one video a month. This year, I'm actually going to be much less consistent than that intentionally. And to answer this question, I think you need to look at things holistically. I think it's really easy to look at where I am now, like, oh, this works for Aprilyn. So me as another creator, I should start uploading just one video per month, because if that works for her, it'll work for me. Right? And the answer is no. So when I think about figuring out upload frequency, that goes hand in hand with what type of video you should be making. And that helps dictate what value you're providing to your audience and therefore how frequently you need to be uploading in order to deliver that value to that audience. So if I were to break this down systemically, I would say step one was, I've started this channel. This was in April 2023. I already had experience from a previous channel, but this was gonna be on a brand new topic. And so I'm thinking, okay, I need to figure out what it is that I want to say and how it is that I want to say it, and who it is that I need to be talking to. So those are kind of three things. The who is the audience, the what is the value delivering to that audience? And the how is the format? So how am I delivering that value to that audience? And I started with the very classic tried and true one video per week. And I did that for about three months and had some small success, but wasn't really getting to the point that I knew that was possible. So I'm like, okay, I'm seeing some growth, but it's not the level of growth that I wanna be seeing. Something needs to change. And that's when I completely changed my upload frequency. I said, okay, I need to be experimenting more. So instead of uploading one video per week, I'm gonna be uploading twice at that point. I even tried three times a week. And for a very short sprint, I was just like, okay, double upload frequency. Make a lot more videos, figure out what resonates what'. Figure out a bunch of different formats that I could be trying. I've developed that terminology now to be defining my video recipe. And I did that for a little bit, learned a lot, and then said, okay, I see a couple of ingredients here that are working. Let me slow way down. Spend two entire weeks working on one video and making that the best video that I can. And that was the video that ended up blowing up my channel that has 1.4 million views at this point, which is my how to make a killer intro video. And from that video, I realized, okay, this is the feedback that I'm getting on why, like, who is watching my channel and why they're watching my videos, what my unique differentiator is and what I need to lean into in order to carry this growth forward, carry this momentum forward. And for me personally, those things were. Those unique differentiators were really, really, really deep research. Like a ton of work that very few people in this industry have been putting into for their videos. When it comes into, like, the sheer number of hours I spent researching for a video, the sheer number of pages of research I put into a video, and the visual and accessible way I take all of that research and put it into a framework that people can see and understand. So I took that and it's like, okay, go ahead.
B
Do you mind? I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but do you mind? I think it would help the audience if you would give. What was your who your what and your why. Can you just briefly explain for you and your channel? You know, the channel banner on your YouTube channel says your name and then it says create a life you love making videos you love. Which that's pretty self explanatory. And we, and we mentioned Ali Abdaal earlier. He opens every one of his videos by saying, hey guys, I'm ali, I'm a YouTuber. You know, I'm, I worked in medicine, turned you to, you know, he explains who he is very quickly in that hook. So can you explain your who and your what and your why?
A
Yeah, I think it has evolved over time. I think when I was starting out, I really wanted my who to be intermediate creators. Like people who have already started a channel but who wanted some something more, who were kind of sick of the Shallow level of YouTube advice that a lot of people were giving and like really wanted the don't just tell me what to do, but tell me like truly how to do it. Like step by step, as granularly as possible. They want levels deeper. So that was my who to begin with. Now I think my who has evolved a little bit more and has broadened to a lot of creators at a lot of different stages. But that was where it was at that point. The how, I guess the the I'll say that the what next. So the what was that deep YouTube knowledge that can help them understand a specific topic. I was focusing on specific topics at that point because that's what I could really dive deep into, like specific areas of YouTube creation. And my how at that point was acting more as like a curator of information. I knew I was like, okay, I'm relatively brand new to the scene. No one's gonna trust this random girl who says, I figured out how to do YouTube because I have no credibility of my own. But what instead the value that I can offer is, hey, I have watched all of these interviews from the top creators in the world and I've seen patterns of everything that they say. And I put it, I packaged it all really, really nicely to you and shown you the proof to back it up. And that is my how. Like that is the type of value that I'm providing. And that's what my who, what how
B
was at that point do as far as the cadence of one video per month. Do you think that, I mean, I know that's not going to work in every niche, but for what you are doing and your channel and your audience knowing who that is, why do you think that cadence worked for you and where as a YouTube coach and you're teaching people how to grow on YouTube, that's not always going to be what we reference is that once per, per month. So explain that and kind of so we can wrap our heads around why that worked for your channel specifically.
A
Yes, a few things. One, the main value that I was providing, that I argue that I still provide is the knowledge itself and my audience values. Like they've come to know me for the level of depth that I go into more than most any other creator in this industry. And that's what they expect. And because of that I think they're willing to wait a lot longer for that level of depth than they would otherwise. It would be different if my value that I was providing was the relationship that I have with my viewer or amount of like entertainment they have. If I want to form a deeper relationship with them, I need to be more relevant because some of that relationship fades the longer it's been since they've seen something from me. Now actually this year I've decided that I want to because my upload frequency is going to decrease even further. I want to supplement my videos with newsletter issues because that's how I can still stay relevant to my audience and still maintain a deeper level of connection with them even though they're not hearing from me, YouTube video wise for months in between. But that's why I think they're willing to wait a lot longer. And also we gotta talk about on the monetization side, if you are monetizing primarily through AdSense, even potentially through AdSense and sponsorships, if you're only uploading one video a month, it becomes like every single video, there's a lot riding on it for it to succeed in order for you to make a living. And if you're someone who just relies on AdSense or just relies on AdSense and sponsors and you're doing that math and you're like, there's no way, even if every video was sponsored, I can make a living with only 12 videos in a year. That's a reason why it doesn't work for a lot of people.
B
Yeah, a hundred percent. It, it really depends on what your end goal is. I do want to ask you this before we get off of this topic. As far as niching down goes, how important is it? Because you do know who you're speaking to and we just talked about that. So many people that I work with. The main issue with, with, with most creators that I work with is a commonality of they don't really know who they're speaking to, they're throwing a lot of things at the wall and there's just no direction with anything, with branding, with programming or anything. And so can you speak to how important it is even now, 2026, going forward?
A
Yes. Okay, two things. One, finding your niche is incredibly important to successful. Two, most people misunderstand what a niche is. And I think what a lot of people think about niche, they think about subject matter, they think about topic. And that could become very restrictive of. Let's say you have, you know, it's like, okay, you have a knitting channel. Let's say it's like, okay, I. Every single video has to be related to knitting. Okay, so then I can do whatever I want, but it has to be related to knitting. And some people could be like, okay, well that means I can maybe have knit with Me vlogs where I knit and my viewers knit along with me. And like, I can also have tutorials where I show how I knit certain things. Maybe I also have challenges where I try to knit something in a certain day. Maybe I'll also bring in different people who also knit. And we have a podcast and we talk about knitting and, you know, and this and this and this. And what you're doing is you are thinking that your subject matter is your niche, when in reality, I would say the combination of I say five different things is your niche, which is your audience. Who are you making videos for? Your value? Why are they watching your videos? What do they get from watching your videos, Your format? How do you deliver that value to your audience, your vibe? How does your audience feel when they're watching your videos and your differentiator? What can they get from watching your videos that they can't get anywhere else? And the common, the unique combination of those five elements is what makes up your niche. And now you can see that. Well, the value that someone gets from watching a Knit with Me video, which is they kind of like a body doubling sort of value, they feel like they can knit and have someone knit with them, even when they're by themselves, they feel companionship there, is very different from the value that someone gets from a knitting tutorial. They want to learn how to do something specific and tangible so that they can do it themselves. They want a specific result from that. And if you do all of these different things, what's, what's the risk? Like, why is this so important? Well, if you make all these different types of videos, you segment your audience, you have some viewers who are here because they want specific results you have some viewers here who want companionship, you have some viewers who want something else. And that means that whenever you make a video, let's say a companionship type of video, all of the viewers who are there because they want a specific result, because they want tutorials, they're not going to click on it, they're not going to watch it. Your average view duration is going to go down, your click through rate is going to go down. YouTube's going to see that video and say, hey, if your own audience doesn't like this video, why would I risk serving it to complete strangers? This is probably not a video that's going to resonate, so your momentum gets capped. Instead, you want every video to provide the same type of value to that same type of audience, so that each success of time, more and more people are going to be attracted to and watch that video and the next and the next. And that's how you build momentum.
B
How does one find what their differentiator is? Is there a thing, algorithm or something you've discovered working with so many creators or yourself? How can I, Dusty or whoever's listening to this, what, what exercises can we do to find maybe what our differentiator is as a creator as opposed to aimlessly wandering around trying to figure out what it might be?
A
Yeah. I think that there are a couple of questions that you can ask yourself. In general, I like to, to think about. Okay, like what, what are things that you really like to do? What are identities that you prescribe to? What are things that you are particularly good at? And what are things that other people say that you are particularly good at? And I think those I literally like when I was thinking about starting this channel, I literally sat down with those questions and wrote down like lists of like bullet points under each of those headings to see what are all the different things that could contribute to something unique about me or some type of differentiator that I think that I could add. I think that question of what do other say you're really good at can be really illuminating too, because often for our unique advantages, our differentiators, we usually can't spot them ourselves because we think that's normal. For me, that thing was, I guess, my, my ability to make information accessible. I never thought about that as a strength of mine because I'm like, what? What do you mean? I'm just sharing what I know. Like that's just, it just comes so naturally. It was only other people telling me, aprilynn, you're so good at this. And this happened. Now this happens to the comments. But even before this, my friends would tell me this, my parents would tell me this, my colleagues would tell me this. Like these were things that I got feedback from from other people who knew me. So I was like, okay, well, even though I don't really see this, other people say I'm good at this thing. So that's the thing. Something that I'm not good at. But I'll just, I'll give another example that I've seen in lots of other people is maybe you're, you're really good at striking up conversations with people. Or you're. You, you come alive. Like the question, like what energizes you? You feel like you come alive when you're around other people. It's like, well, maybe your content should be designed in some way where you're interacting with people. Like kind of what you're doing right now desti with like a podcast versus having completely solo content, talking head videos, maybe you won't shine as much in those environments as when you are in ones where you get to interact with more people. So that's kind of where I would start when I'm thinking about what my differentiator is.
B
I interrupt the conversation just for a few seconds to remind you that we have a ton of different offerings for creators. Everything from one on one private coaching, YouTube channel reviews and audits where I take a look at your channel and tell you where I think you should be spending your time to efficiently grow your channel. We have the Mastermind group, which five to ten bucks gets you in. You get access to weekly exclusive podcast recordings, our Discord forums, the Mastermind calls, alongside of the pop out calls that are hosted by our members. So if you're looking for a place to just grow and get to know other creators and bounce ideas off of them, that's the place to do it. And then lastly, I want to mention my email newsletter, the Entrepreneur's Minute. It's free. I'm not going to spam you with a bunch of different emails. Every Friday I talk about what I'm doing to grow my business and further my personal brand. And if you'd like to take a look at the links mentioned on this show and previous episodes, we have a running spreadsheet called the Entrepreneurs Toolbox. All of that linked down below. All right, with that said, back to the show. I love that. Those are great answers. I'm so interested in that topic because so many people have such difficulty with that figuring out who they are, what makes them different. You know, yes, you're saying the same things. There's a lot of YouTube educators. You and I do similar things. We help people grow their channels and get their voices heard, but we go at them at a different way because we're different people and we know what we do well and we try to lean into those things. You've made a lot of very successful videos about a singular topic, about intros and about hooking and about how to get the attention right off really quickly. Can you just talk about that briefly before we merge into monetization and talk about how you're making this money? What are things that people who are listening to this can do to make their intros and their hooks better?
A
Yes, really quickly. 1. Your hook starts with your title and thumbnail. Because the sole purpose of your first 5 seconds of your first 30 seconds is to meet and exceed the expectations set by your title and thumbnail. You can't do that if you don't have a title and thumbnail or at least an idea of what the title and thumbnail are going to be in the first place. So your hook starts with your title and thumbnail. The question is, what is the plot promise? Like, what is what based on the title and thumbnail? What does the viewer think the video is going to be about? Your very first five seconds of your video, you have to deliver on that plot promise. You have to assure your viewer they are going to get what they clicked for. So let's say in your title thumbnail, you're like, you know, it's like, okay, how to knit a sweater. If in the first five seconds you do not mention knitting and you do not mention a sweater and you do not mention that you're going to learn how to do it, that is a bad first five seconds because that is what the viewer thinks they're going to get. You have to deliver on those expectations. That's your very first five. I would even say to try to visually, if you can deliver on that, a lot of people autoplay on the hook so they don't even hear the words. So let's take, take that knitting example. Show knitting needles, show a knitted sweater. Show something to visually deliver on that plot promise set by your title thumbnail as well. So that's the first five. After that, you want to do some sort of combination of one, establishing proper context. Be very reserved with your context. I would say a biggest mistake that I see a lot of people make, they put way too much context in the very beginning. A lot of that can come later, keep your context really minimal. What do they need to know? You want to establish some sort of curiosity gap. So what that means is just creating some sort of opened question or open loop in the minds of the viewer. What sort of questions can you evoke in their minds that would make them want to keep watching? So, for instance, in the knitting example, it's like you can knit any sweater as long as you follow these four steps. Great question. What are the four steps? That is what's going to keep people wanting to watch more or less. Everyone always makes the same mistake. What is that mistake? That is the curiosity gap. I would also try to, in your hook, if you can, try to put some sort of USP unique service proposition, some sort of differentiator within your intro as well, to make it clear why this is going to be worth watching. Maybe it's your own expertise. I have been knitting for the last 20 years. I've learned a lot. Great. Now they have a reason to value your video more. Maybe it's. I tried five different knitting techniques and this is the best one. Great. You now you have that level of credibility. Maybe it's even just showing the proof. You're going to learn how to knit this sweater. Great. You know exactly what you're getting. That is a proof that you're going to get what you came for. That is your usp. So try to have those types of things. And the last thing that I'll mention really quickly is keep it short. Really try to aim for no longer than 30 seconds total for your intro. There's this term I like to use called time to value. The longer the viewer has to wait to start to get some of the actual value that they clicked for, the more likely they are to click away. So decrease that time to value as much as you can.
B
Yeah, time to value is something I talk about quite frequently. I love that, the way you put it, because how if you're sitting here and you're adding all this fluff and you're trying to add a bunch of flashy things and segments, but you're getting away or you're straying away from what the core meat of the video is about, you're going to lose people quickly, you know, getting into it and doing all the things that you talked about. That's really good. So I wanted to ask the intro expert about intros that I would have really done, done a disservice to my audience. So you're obviously making really good money doing this. You're helping other people make really good Money. Can we talk about now how you are monetizing, you know, being that you're only uploading once a month, sometimes less than that. What are ways that you're making money to make the amounts that you're saying in these videos?
A
Yeah, so I will say that last year my income pie looks pretty significantly different from what it's going to look like this year. Last year the large majority of how much money made was almost a 50, 50 split between brand deals and my own offer. So my own offer last year was called Creator Crew. It was like a six month long YouTube coaching program that I ran my very first time running a cohort. Learned a lot from that experience. That was, yeah, around 50, I would say around 45% ish of my total revenue pie. The other 45% ish came from brand deals. Every single video was sponsored and there was a lot I did outside of just videos to go within those brand deals as well. And then the remaining 10% is some mixture of affiliate and Adsense, I would say.
B
And now what you're working on is a future cohort starting in April of this year. And so what do, what is it going to look like more this year?
A
Yeah, so based off of last year, I've learned a lot about offers. If anyone's thinking about an offer of their own, who can give you any piece of advice? One, Try to keep the first time minimal. I started with a six month long program. Live calls almost every weekday. That is a lot to commit to for your very first program. So if you do any sort of own offer of your own, try to keep it minimal to start. I've learned a lot from that experience. The students having a great time. It was crazy. I think the, the average subscriber growth was 50% for all of the channels, which was wild. And this time we took a lot of what we learned from that experience, pared it down to something that's more manageable for the students, which is a three month long program. So a 12 week program, 90 days called 90 Day Breakthrough. It's across three different phases and these are the same phases that I use when I was blowing up my channel. I've done it multiple times. It's worked for a lot of other people. And yeah, that starts on March 30th. Open for enrollment. Now I'm super, super stoked for this cohort especially because this year I'm really not accepting brand deals very much. This year I basically decided after everything I learned last year, just kind of not prioritizing them. So Maybe you'll see a couple of brand deals from me this year, but nowhere near it was last year.
B
That's awesome. It's cool how you're pivoting it, and being that you made that much money last year, it shows the confidence that you have in your. In your program. And I just. I love that. I want to ask you this. Working with so many creators last year in that longer program, and obviously doing so up until this point today, what are some of the common things that you see people struggle with the most as far as creators go? And what would you. What do you advise to help them get through those. Maybe those blocks in their creative journey?
A
Yeah, I would say so many people, regardless of level, struggle with the same questions of, like, what is my. My video recipe? Who am I? Who am I making videos for? What type of value am I providing? How do I want to provide that value? You have the questions when you're just starting out because you're like, what channel do I want to have? You have that question even later on when you're more intermediate because maybe that answer has changed from where you were to where you want to be. And the question of, do I pivot? Is it possible to pivot? How do I want, like, how do I live the life that I want to live while still delivering the value to my viewers? That's a really big challenge that they have. And, yeah, we have. I would say the best thing that they can do is one, expand your taste. Like, I think a lot of people forget how to be conscious consumers of YouTube and really, like, spend intentional time every single week consuming YouTube as a creator, thinking about, why did I click on this video? Like, really why? Is it because I wanted this result? Is it because of this other thing? Is it because this. Something about this title or this thumbnail opened a really big curiosity gap for me, and that made me click, write that down, save that to a swipe file. That's really, really, really important. Expanding your taste will help you understand why you click on things and therefore why other people might click on your things. Another big thing that so many people struggle with, and I know we don't have a lot of time to get into it, but, like, just packaging titles and thumbnails together, Whew. I would say 80% of the success of a video, if not more, is determined by your, like, simply your title and thumbnail, which sucks for a lot of reasons. The fact that you can put so much work into a video and have none of it matter if you don't do well in your title and thumbnail. But one of the best things that you can do for that is look for validation, look for proof of prior success. Something that my producer and I do when we're packaging every video very intentionally is we'll like, look for outliers for similar topics or even similar formats of videos from other creators. And thinking about what's the main character of these thumbnails? What are the supporting characters in this? In these thumbnails, is there any text? If so, what is the text? Why is this text there? Menting? Is it supporting? Is it adding credibility? Is it adding another curiosity gap? How do these loses these different elements? And we'll use that as a building block when we're creating our own thumbnail versus just staring at like a blank 1080 by 1920, like canvas and thinking, like, what the heck do I put in there? It's really hard to start from scratch. So, yeah, those. Those are two things that I'll mention there.
B
Yeah, packaging. We might can lean into that for a few minutes before we close out today. If you have a channel, treating it like a business and treating it like one coherent thing is so important. So many people have thumbnails that are all over the place one time. They'll use this color, they'll use this font. But, like, for yours, you found a style that worked for you, that found success. And your most popular video, kind of having a picture of you at the bottom and then having some really colorful kind of elements at the top above you. Can you talk on landing on your style, like, and how everyone's might be different, but maybe how you found yours?
A
Yeah, style is such a tricky, tricky, tricky thing for my style. Honestly, I wish that I could say that, like, oh, it was a very formulaic thing. And I chose this because of this and I chose that because of that. That one thumbnail that blew up and that was crazy. Glad that even started, like, its own different format of thumbnail that I've a lot of different people in different niches use as well. I just thought of it, like, and I wish, I truly wish that there was something they could say. But, like, for that specific thumbnail, I was thinking about how I wanted to make that, like, how I wanted to package that and that particular image, that, that, like, minimalistic image just came to mind. And I was like, all right, let's do it. And that color scheme, I like using lots of colors. And I like there. This is concept of contrast I really liked of, like, how can you contrast, like, use saturation Contra have some things that are highly saturated and highly colorful with other things that are less saturated and minimalism, which is something that I really enjoyed. So it's like, okay, let's try this in a thumbnail. Didn't really have any proof of prior success there. I had never seen a thumbnail like that before. I just did it and lo and behold, it worked out. The thing is, after that thumbnail worked out, instead of being like, okay, let's try something different for the next thumbnail. But no, let us stay as close as possible to this thumbnail formula. How can I take this is concept of like templatizing or formatizing. So how can you take something that has worked really well for you in the past and formatize it so that you can do another video, but take different elements of the thing that you formatized and applied it to this? So that's why my very next thumbnail, which is about thumbnails, like, okay, how could I have a similar composition composition? How can I have a similar saturation contrast? How can I have a similar main character, supporting character, text, but have it be related to thumbnails vs intros? How can I visualize thumbnails vs visualizing intros? And I stuck pretty close to that format until I felt like I had a good enough handle on it to be able to tweak things but still keep some same. Still keep the idea of saturation contrast as much as I could. Now I'll start to experiment a little bit more. But really, it's like, once you find something that works for you, keep to it as closely as you can.
B
Yeah. And being able to have someone look at a video thumbnail in the suggested videos and say, oh, that's April Lynn video. Right to where they can see that style and know it's something that reflects you. They've seen that before. Like we talked about Ali Abdaal. We've used him a few times today. His thumbnails all have a very similar styling, kind of playful nature to them. And so I think that figuring out what yours is is very important. This has been a great episode, Aprilyn. I'd love to bring you back on when we have more time and and chat about specific things in regards to the creator economy. And so maybe we can do that in the near future. But good luck on your cohort. I'll put links down below to her website where you can that out, as well as her YouTube channel to see the other content she creates. But we really appreciate your time today.
A
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
B
And that's a wrap on this week's episode of the Creators Hub Show. I'll link below all the different offerings that we have for creators. Everything from our private one on one coaching, our Mastermind group with Mastermind calls, exclusive podcast, as well as our YouTube channel reviews and audits. If this show is something that's helped you, you do something that's absolutely free. Subscribe to the podcast wherever and however you consume your podcast, as well as two other things. Leave us a review and if you know someone who would be a great fit for this podcast, there's a Google form on my website. Fill it out and connect me with those creators. With that said, we'll talk to you guys next week.
Podcast: YouTube Creators Hub
Host: Dusty Porter
Guest: Aprilynne Alter (Creator, Educator, YouTuber)
Episode Title: She Made $290K on YouTube with Only 44 Videos
Date: March 20, 2026
In this episode, Dusty Porter sits down with Aprilynne Alter, a YouTube creator and educator who left a traditional finance career to pursue her passion for online education. Aprilynne discusses her journey to building a successful YouTube channel with a unique content approach, the principles behind her impressive growth (over $290K earned from just 44 videos), and her strategies for content creation, audience targeting, and monetization. The discussion delivers actionable insights for aspiring creators and those seeking to refine their YouTube presence.
Accidental Inspiration: Aprilynne originally considered YouTube impractical for her until discovering Ali Abdaal’s business breakdown, realizing the potential for educational channels.
Early Approach: Began her channel in April 2023 after experimenting with Twitter and recognizing the power of niche education on YouTube.
Rare Upload Schedule Works: Aprilynne’s growth was not due to frequent uploads but to high-quality, in-depth videos.
Strategic Experimentation: She experimented with upload frequency (weekly, biweekly, sprints of multiple videos/week), focusing on figuring out what resonated with her audience, then slowed down to focus on crafting high-value content.
Depth Over Frequency: Her audience values “really, really, really deep research,” allowing them to wait longer for substantial videos (09:43, A).
Multi-Faceted Niche: Aprilynne challenges the misconception that niche is only about the subject. Instead, it’s an intersection of five aspects:
Risk of Variety: Mixing video types for different values can cap a channel’s growth, as a split audience will dilute engagement metrics, slowing momentum in the algorithm.
Self-Discovery Exercise: Aprilynne recommends creators reflect on:
Leverage External Feedback: Often your differentiator is something so natural to you that only others recognize it as a special skill.
Hook Starts with Title & Thumbnail: Your intro should instantly assure viewers they’ll get exactly what was promised in the title and thumbnail (plot promise).
Visual and Verbal Cues: Use direct references and visuals matching the promise (“show knitting needles” if it’s a knitting video).
Curiosity Gap: Quickly pose a question or tease a secret (“the 4 steps” or “the mistake everyone makes”) to keep viewers watching.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Interweave your expertise or technique into the hook.
Time to Value: Keep intros under 30 seconds; get to real content fast to avoid drop-offs.
2025 Revenue Breakdown:
Shifting for 2026:
Advice for Creators: Start with shorter, more contained programs for your first cohort or product to avoid burnout and excessive commitment.
Common Struggles: Finding one’s “video recipe” (audience, value, delivery), knowing when or how to pivot, and living the lifestyle you want while providing value.
Actionable Solutions:
Thumbnail Style: Aprilynne’s most successful thumbnails used unique color contrasts and composition, and after success, she templatized the format to establish brand consistency.
On Niche:
“A niche is not just the subject matter... the unique combination of audience, value, format, vibe, and differentiator.” (13:39, A)
On Differentiators:
“We usually can’t spot them ourselves because we think that’s normal.” (16:08, A)
On Hooks:
“If in the first five seconds you do not mention knitting and you do not mention a sweater... that is a bad first five seconds.” (20:12, A)
On Time to Value:
“The longer the viewer has to wait to start to get some of the actual value that they clicked for, the more likely they are to click away.” (21:59, A)
On Program Creation:
“Try to keep the first time minimal. I started with a six month long program... That is a lot to commit to for your very first program.” (24:45, A)
Aprilynne’s language is detailed, friendly, and deeply practical. She’s transparent about her journey and earnings, provides step-by-step frameworks, and discusses both psychology and tactics. Dusty offers warm, insightful prompts and keeps the flow focused on genuine, actionable takeaways.
Aprilynne’s story illustrates that intentional, high-value content can trump frequency on YouTube, provided you deeply understand your audience, differentiate your value, and package it for maximum “time to value.” Her frameworks for defining niche, finding a differentiator, and building a productized offer are actionable for any creator aiming to grow a meaningful business—no matter how many videos they have.