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How to Choose a YouTube Channel Name
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May 19, 2024
Choosing a YouTube channel name is a critical step in establishing your brand identity. Start by brainstorming names that reflect your content and resonate with your target audience. Aim for a name that is memorable, easy to spell, and pronounce. Consider incorporating relevant keywords to improve searchability. Check the availability of your chosen name across social media platforms and domain names to ensure consistency. Avoid names that are too similar to existing channels to prevent confusion. Lastly, ensure your name is unique and timeless, allowing for potential expansion of your content in the future. A well-chosen channel name can significantly impact your brand's recognition and growth.
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How to choose a name for your YouTube channel
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So I know this is something that can create a lot of stress. It stressed me out when I created a new channel about six months ago
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I'll tell you more about that at the end of the video. But by not choosing a name, I probably waited a month or longer before I started creating content on YouTube
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I don't want that to happen to you. Let's go through my recommendations for helping you choose the channel name
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The first decision to make is do you want to use your name or do you want to create a name for the channel specifically
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There are tons of channels that use the name of the creator
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Here are just a couple. Something I would think about is the topic of the channel
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something really important to you where you could have your name attached to it
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or would you rather have a different name for the channel? Is the topic of the channel really important to you
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where if someone searches for your name on Google or YouTube that the channel comes up
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or would you rather have a brand name for the content? So maybe this is just a hobby
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or something you're doing for kind of work-related, but you don't want to have your first name and last name on YouTube be this type of content
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It's completely okay, but something to think about. Are you going to be the only one creating content on this channel
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So this channel is called the Fidco. Our business is called the FIGCO, and it's not just me
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We have a bunch of content that we also create in Spanish. My colleagues create videos in Spanish
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There's several people that appear on that channel. So my business partner and I, our last names are Thalen and Figueroa
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And so we basically kind of squish that together to create the video. Fidco. And so most people don't get that. They don't understand where the name came from
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but it's not just me on the English channel or not just her on the Spanish channel. So we came up
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with the name and we used it for both the English and the Spanish channel. Is your name easy
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to remember, pronounce, and write? If you think people are going to have trouble with your name
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you can use it. I'm not telling you not to, but it's just something to think about. Maybe
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you'd want to choose a brand that's easier for someone to remember than a name that people are
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going to always write wrong. YouTube will probably figure out it's you after a certain amount of time
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but it's just something to think about. So think of Gary Vee. So his name is Gary Vaynerchuk
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but Vaynerchuk is complicated to write. So he goes by Gary V. Sarah Deitchie always says
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Sarah Dici. Deci rhymes with peachy. So you can understand how her last name is pronounced
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A third example would be Tom Billu. So maybe not the most complicated name, but still people may not
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be 100% sure how to pronounce his last name. You're welcome to use any name that you have for your
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personal brand on your channel, but just one factor to think about. Do you have a fairly common name
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they're already someone using your first name and last name for their channel. So a story with this, my colleague Diego has a YouTube channel about video editing in Spanish
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And the thing is, his name is Diego Figueroa, a fairly common name. So if you search for it on YouTube, you may see something like this and you don't see his content
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even though several of his videos have thousands of views and he almost has a thousand subscribers
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So if you want to stand out and someone else already has your name, you'll need to create lots of content
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So you show up first when people search for it or think about maybe creating a brand
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What I want you to do now is to write down all the words that come to mind related to the content you're going to create
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the niche that you're in, and potentially the outcome that your audience is looking to get from viewing your content
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After you finish that list, the next thing I want you to do is to think of any other words that you could add to the name
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that add more clarity on the type of content you're going to create how you're different than others in your niche
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So the word I want to use an example today is filmmaker. So there's already a channel called filmmaker
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So you're probably going to need to add a word or a couple words if you're creating content about filmmaking
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Let me show you what I'm talking about. So here is a channel called filmmaker that has 58 videos and 35,000 subscribers
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If you want to see other channels related to the search what you can do is click on filters right here and then go to type and channel So here are all the channels that have filmmaker in the title or the most relevant ones
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So if we scroll down filmmaker IQ, tomorrow's filmmaker, so the future of filmmaking, you can learn here
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the engineering filmmaker, and Parker Wahlbeck. So Parker Wahlbeck has full-time filmmaker
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So the idea of his courses and the content on the YouTube channel is how to make a full-time living through filmmaking
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So not to be your side hustle or something you only do on the weekends, how to make it your full-time career
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Scrolling down further, let's see the frugal filmmaker, how to make films and not spend a ton of money
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Filmmaker survival, so how to survive, the Savage filmmaker, the fit filmmaker, the practical filmmaker
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filmmaker's formula, the fly fishing filmmaker, you get the idea. So you have the two types of words right now
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The next thing I want you to do is to go to YouTube, go to Google search, start putting some of those phrases
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in and see what other channels, websites, social media accounts come up
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Okay, so what I just brought up are a bunch of different YouTube searches, and we'll see the names of the channels of the creators that show up in search result
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So the first search is new Mac Studio, apparently suggested products. Google and YouTube are confused if they should show Mac Cosmetics or the Mac Studio from Apple
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Down below, so we have Marquez Brownlee or known as MKBHD. You have your average consumer Mac rumor, so including Mac or Apple or I for iPhone, iPad, or whatever, in the name if you're going to be creating content about Apple products
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Mary Spender, so a personal brand, Max Tech, Dave 2D, Renee Richie, I Justine, Marcus Brownlee, Jared Pollan, CNet, 9 to 5 Mac, Greg's gadgets
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You get the idea. Alpha Gaming. next one is how to cook brisket
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Who doesn't like brisket? So let's check out the channel names. The Dogfather's Barbecue, Simply Mama Cooks
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Anne's Family Recipe, Gordon Ramsey, How to Barbecue, Right, Smoke Trails Barbecue, Howcast, the Cook and Share
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So one thing I want to point out here is how focused or broad do you think your content is going to be
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So if you include Mac or barbecue or something more specific, then if you have Mac in the name
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you're probably not reviewing Android devices or PC computers. The same thing with cooking
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If you're going to be doing just barbecue, hey, have barbecue in your name. If you're going to do cooking that's much more broad
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then maybe you want a broader name. So I just opened up a whole bunch of different YouTube channels
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so you can see the name that they came up with. I'm not included any personal brands
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I already showed you some of those earlier. The first one is channel makers. So coming up with a word related to YouTube, YouTube channel
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So channel makers making channels. I think that works well. Okay, whiteboard crypto
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So I'm going to teach you through whiteboarding what crypto's all about. Hey Dominic, didn't want to use his first and last name
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So, Hey, Dominic. Alpha Gaming. So big tough alpha and gaming. Potato Jet, I can't remember how he came up with his channel name
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Thomas Frank Explains. So there's already a Thomas Frank channel. And then the explains part is to learn about Notion
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It's not totally clear that it's about Notion from the name, but it's different than his personal brand
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Silicon Valley Girl. so everything related to startup, Silicon Valley, making money, things like that
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Creator economics, how you can make money as a creator. That Icelandic guy, so his name is really super difficult to pronounce
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So he decided that Icelandic guy is more memorable, easy to pronounce, easy to remember
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So he's going with that. How to ADHD. Beka de la Plants
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Manflow yoga so yoga for men pretty clear from the name Make art now about video related stuff DSLR video shooter So one thing I want to point out here is most cameras that are sold today are not DSLRs
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They don't have the mirror that comes up and down. They are mirrorless cameras. So the name that he chose for this channel is kind of irrelevant or not up to date, I guess
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Let's Talk Money. Teaching Men's Fashion. Chrisma on command. This is one I like
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It's just really clear from the beginning that I'm going to teach you to be charismatic
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Keep productive. So not just be productive this second, but maintain your productivity
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Chris Winter Tutorial, so his name, but wanted to add tutorials on the end
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Sarah Beth Yoga, so you see Yoga with Adrian, so you put yoga at the beginning or at the end
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So Filmboot. So this channel is amazing. If you want to learn to grow on YouTube, their content is great
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The name, I'm not sure the booth part of it. Film I get, the booths
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I'm not sure how they chose that. CoffeeZilla. I don't really know how he came up with that name
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MaxTet, so the maximum of technology you're going to learn here. Think Media
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So Sean created this channel a long time. We only had content for Think International
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So they said Think Media. We're going to talk about YouTube cameras and things like that
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And they're obviously doing well today, even though they're like, hey, if they chose the name today
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maybe they would have picked something different. Fellow filmmaker, so I think I mentioned them earlier
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So hey, we're gonna help you create films. The community experience by SPI
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so SPI stands for Smart Passive Income. The founder of that, Pat Flynn
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already has a channel with his name. So they wanted to create a channel
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that the rest of the team could create content for, not on his personal brand
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And so this is that channel. If you want additional help getting started on YouTube
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with your channel, your first videos, and starting to grow on YouTube
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We just launched a YouTube course for beginners. It's four weeks long
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and there's live sessions and a ton of information to make sure you have everything you need
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no more excuses to getting your channel up and running. So if you want to learn more
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check out the link in the description below. Here are a couple of additional recommendations when choosing a name
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So the first thing you don't want to go against the YouTube community guidelines, so I wouldn't use swear words in your content
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I wouldn't include numbers in the name, so would it be this or this
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this, it's kind of unclear. So I'd stay away from numbers if you can help it. Try to keep your name
10:01
as short as possible. Ideally, two or three words. I would say the max would be five, but these
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shouldn't be five long words. So something that works, that's five words is the Colin and Samir
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show. So each of the words is fairly short. Another way to look at it would be trying to keep it
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under, say, 30 characters. Now let's talk about a couple different categories for names. So the first
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would be a name related to your niche. So this could be the Cryptodad, Creator Economics, Alpha
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Gaming, Manflow Yoga. Another could be the outcome that the viewer is looking for. So full-time
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filmmaker, charisma on command. It's very clear, hey, this is what you're going to have if you
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watch our content. Random names that sound cool. Coffee Zilla, that Icelandic guy, Mr. Beast
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Putey Pie. Nitch with name. So this could be investing with Rose, yoga with all the people that
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use yoga with. There's a ton of those channels. and then cooking with Shireen
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Or you can switch it around and have Mad Fit, Sarah Beth Yoga, Thomas Frank explains
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Chris Winter tutorials. There's a few more things we need to check
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before moving forward. The first of which is to see if you can get the custom URL for your channel name
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After you get 100 subscribers on YouTube, you'll be able to get a channel URL
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that looks something like this as opposed to something like this when you first create your account You should also see the same username is available across all of social media It much easier if you have the same username for all of your social media accounts for your YouTube channel and for your website
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You may not want to create a website right now, but you at least want to check to see if
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the URL is available. Ideally, you want to get the dot com, but also dot co, that net
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That I.O, there's a few other options if the dot com is taken
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And you can check all of this in one place if you go to namecheck.com
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written a little bit strange, but don't worry, it's down below in the description. Here you can
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figure out if the YouTube URL is available, the social media accounts are available as well as
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a different URLs. It's not the end of the world if you can't get the exact username on social
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media or the domain name that you want. You can get a little bit creative here. So a business like
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YADA, an online savings account, their website is with yada.com. And I think their social media
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accounts are the same. So you can kind of get around this if some
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of the usernames that you want are taken. The next thing you want to do is Google the potential name for your channel and see what comes up
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For example, Catherine Manning, her channel used to be called the content bug. And people relate content and websites and bugs as something's wrong with the website essentially
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So she decided that she wanted to change her channel name, which brings me to my next point
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And one of the most important things in all this video is the important thing is to choose
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a channel name and move forward and start creating content. Don't get stuck at this stage
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not actually create content for YouTube. Just move forward and know that if you don't like the name
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later on, you can always change it. So Catherine Manning used to be the content bug. Think Media's podcast
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was Think Marketing Podcast. They thought the content would be more about marketing than they
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realized it's a little bit confusing when everything else is called Think Media. So they made that
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change. Also, Primal Video used to be called Video Editing Coach. They realized they wanted a broader name
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that encapsulated more types of content, and so they made the switch as well. So choose
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something, start creating content, and move forward. Now let's talk about the new channel that I
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started. So if you're watching this video, it means that we're in process of monetizing our channel
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so we reached 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. We have the watch time, and right
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now we have 930-some subscribers at the moment of recording this video. It's in the personal
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finance space, and it's called Greater Than Enough. So what I was thinking when coming up with the channel
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name is the fact that I want to think of the end goal. What's the goal for people with their
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finances? And a lot of people have less than enough. They're struggling to get by. They're
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living paycheck to paycheck. And so that person would like to be at a point where they have
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abundance. They have more enough. So abundance was kind of the word that I had in my head that
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kind of not that I want to be a millionaire, but I want to have enough and feel comfortable
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And so abundance didn't really work out using that in the name. Also more than enough is kind of
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the same idea. There's a book and some other things with that name. And I'm kind of math nerdy and was
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thinking of greater than, like the greater than or less than sign. And most people are less than
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enough. And so I thought, why don't we call it greater than enough? And so the profile image is the
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greater than sign. And so it kind of gets that idea across. I don't know if everyone totally gets
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the channel name, but that was the idea that I was going for. It was a name that I was considering for
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at least a month before making the final decision. And I wish I just made the decision
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start creating content, and I would have a month's worth of additional content, and the channel
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would have been monetized a month sooner. My advice to move forward is to follow these steps
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choose a channel name, and start creating videos for your YouTube channel. You can always change
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the channel name later. And to help you get started creating content for YouTube, I have two
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video recommendations. The first, how to come with ideas for your YouTube videos. You can check out
15:00
that video right here, and how to get your first 100 subscribers. You can check out that video below
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Hope to see you in those and future videos. Bye-bye
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