What is the best strategy for starting a YouTube channel?

Short answer

Pick a topic where small channels are already getting big views. Pick one video format you can repeat 50 times. Copy the promise of the best small-channel videos with your own angle. Post weekly, and after ten videos, make more of whatever worked best.

Skip the logo, the intro, and the gear until video ten. None of it gets views, and the first ten videos are for finding out what does.

Why the topic decision comes first

A new channel has no subscribers, so every view in its first months comes from a stranger. Strangers click on the video, not the channel. That means the only topics a new channel can win in are the ones where strangers are already clicking on videos from channels they do not know. Those topics are visible in the data: small channels getting big multipliers.

Pick a topic owned by huge channels and you spend a year making good videos nobody is shown. Pick an open topic and your fifth video can outrun your subscriber count by twenty times. The rest of the plan only works if this step is right.

The plan, step by step

1. Pick a topic where small channels already win. In OutlierKit, search a topic and look at the subscriber counts on the top results. If channels with 1,000 to 20,000 subscribers are getting 5 to 20 times their normal views, the topic is open. If only huge channels appear, pick another topic. The post on picking a niche with three checks adds the earnings and depth checks to this one.
2. Pick one format you can make 50 times. In geography that is "N facts that [surprise]". You can make it by country, by continent, or by theme for a year. One format means every video teaches you about the next one.
3. Model the best small-channel videos. Take the three to five best ones. Keep the promise, change the angle. For geography: 15 Borders That Make No Sense Until You See the History. 12 Capital Cities That Are in the Wrong Place. 20 Islands You Would Swear Belong to a Different Country. 10 Rivers That Flow the Wrong Way. 14 Countries Bigger Than You Think.
4. Post weekly. After ten videos, look at which one beat your average by the most. Make three more like it. The small-channel growth strategy picks up from here, once the channel has a shape.
5. Skip the logo, the intro, and the gear until video ten. None of it gets views. The post on quality versus quantity explains why production waits.

What the example shows: three sizes, one open topic

1.2K subscribers

8.4K subscribers

19K subscribers

Three geography channels of very different sizes were all overperforming on 4 September 2026. Curios Earth, with 1,200 subscribers, got 6,800 views on a UK geography facts video, 5.7 times its normal. GLOBE SIGHTSEER, with 8,400 subscribers, got 48,000 views on a map quiz, 9.1 times its normal. Price of Travel, with 19,000 subscribers, got 496,000 views on 23 geography facts, 22.9 times its normal.

An open topic looks like this: the audience shows up for the video, not the channel. A new geography channel with zero subscribers is competing in a topic where a 1,200- subscriber channel just beat its normal by nearly six times. The three videos share a format family: facts and quizzes about places, with a number in the title. Repeat that format 50 times.

Two more channel sizes in the same open topic

A second pull on 7 September 2026 added two more geography channels at sizes between the three above.

Maply, with 5,720 subscribers, got 113,000 views on 15 Australia geography facts, 86.9 times its normal. Borderline Wonders, with 15,400 subscribers, got 347,000 views on 25 Mexico facts, 26.7 times normal. That makes five geography channels from 1,200 to 19,000 subscribers, all overperforming with the same "N facts about a place" format. An open topic looks like this at every size.

What the first ten videos are for

The first ten videos are an experiment, not a portfolio. Each one tests a different angle inside the same format. After ten, one or two will have beaten your average by a clear margin. Your audience is voting. Make three more like the winner, then look again. Channels that do this find their shape in three to four months. Channels that spend those months on branding find nothing, because a logo cannot tell you what people want.

Two things to track from video one: which titles got clicks, and which videos held viewers past the first 30 seconds. The post on hooks and retention covers the second, and the post on getting more views shows how to read both numbers in YouTube Studio.

Words used on this page

Open topic

A topic where channels with 1,000 to 20,000 subscribers are getting 5 to 20 times their normal views. Strangers are clicking on the video, not the channel.

Format

A repeatable video shape, like "N facts that surprise" or "one beginner mistake per video".

Outlier multiplier

A video's views divided by what its channel usually gets. 22.9x means the video did 22.9 times the channel's normal.