I Posted 247 Videos in 4 Months. Here's What Happened | 241 Subs | 2 Videos Per Day | [April 2025 Review]

This year, I wanted to figure out how to monetize my content creation. I've been blogging since 2014 and podcasting since 2020. I want a financial vehicle to tether to the content I'm creating. YouTube is the platform to do that.

I started taking YouTube seriously in January 2025. Four months into this journey, I've been pushing YouTube to its limits, trying to understand how the algorithm works and what strategies are effective. In the video above, I share the results of my four months on YouTube, highlighting the lessons and insights I've learned. These insights will guide my future YouTube endeavors and hopefully assist you on your journey.

My YouTube Journey So Far

So far this year, I've published 247 videos. This includes dedicated YouTube videos (which I call "fireside chats" like this one), full episodes of the Share Life podcast, and clips from my podcast episodes. I published a lot of clips in January and February, and while they had good results, it was a lot of videos. So, I shifted my strategy to focus more on full podcast episodes and fireside chat videos.

In January, I had 68 subscribers, and I'm now at 246. That's significant progress, increasing my subscriber count by three or four times. It took me seven years to get those first 68 subscribers, so this recent growth is exciting. I've also surpassed my 2024 watch hours.

In this video, we'll explore my four months on YouTube. You can use the chapters below to navigate to the topics that interest you most.

Topics We'll Explore

• My YouTube Story
• Number of Videos Published
• Subscriber Growth
• Getting My First Sponsorship for the Year
• 2025 Watch Hours & Breakdown by Month
• Watch Hours by Video Type
• What Video Lengths Got the Most Watch Hours?
• Can I Grow Old Video Watch Time?
• What Defines a Video Hit?
• Top 6 Most Watched Videos in 2025
• Dethroning My Top 12 Videos
• YouTube Publishing Challenge Results
• Checking in on My YouTube Shorts Experiment
• Additional Lessons Learned From YouTubing
• Is YouTube on Easy Mode?
• What's Next? A Strategy Pivot

My YouTube Story

I started podcasting in 2020, but I actually created my YouTube channel in 2017. Since I had been blogging since 2014, in 2017-2018, I needed a place to host a video for a blog post. So, I created the channel, uploaded the video, and embedded it in my blog post. That was my start in 2017, seven years before I got serious about YouTube.

During those seven years, I viewed YouTube primarily as a video hosting platform, not a marketing platform or a community. It was a blind spot of mine. When I realized this in the last several months, I started taking it seriously. Before then, I was just publishing podcast episodes and not even creating thumbnails for most of them. After a few years, I started using thumbnails more for aesthetic reasons, not as a promotional tool to get more views.

I continued publishing mostly podcast episodes until 2024. In 2024, I became more aggressive with my social media and YouTube presence. I started posting clips and interviewing some prominent figures. I gained a little traction, and that's what opened my eyes to YouTube's potential. I accidentally had a video that got a lot of views and watch hours without me promoting it. I realized that YouTube was actually promoting my videos for free. I had known this for YouTube Shorts and Reels across social channels, but not for long-form content on YouTube.

When that clicked for me, I started looking at YouTube very differently. Once I understood the opportunity, I began updating my office. If you look at my older videos, you'll see my background is completely different. I've set up lights (you can check out a video about my lighting and backdrop setup), and I've streamlined my recording process to make it easy to record and publish videos. I wanted to remove as much friction as possible to make producing YouTube videos quick and easy.

As part of that, I started producing videos specifically for YouTube. This is something I only did once in 2024 and never before that. Most of my videos were simply podcast episodes where I interviewed someone. While those have their place and I continue to do them, I added videos where I'm specifically talking to the camera.

In January, February, March, and April, I published a lot of podcast episodes, fireside chat videos, and podcast clips. My goal was to generate high volume on YouTube to achieve monetization through the AdSense program. To qualify, you need 4,000 watch hours within a 365-day period and 1,000 subscribers. I've gone from 68 subscribers to 246, so I'm about a quarter of the way to my subscriber goal, which is exciting progress.

Number of Videos Published

In 2025, I've published 247 videos, which is a lot. Most of those are clips from my podcast episodes. The clips have done relatively well for my channel; they've helped gain subscribers and collectively accumulated watch hours. However, on a per-video basis, they're not as effective as other formats. For example, I did 32 new videos in April alone. I published a lot in January and February to push YouTube's limits and understand how to gain more traction.

In many ways, the more videos you create, the more impressions you get. But I've realized that I need to optimize those impressions for better click-through rates and retention. In 2025, here's a breakdown of how many of my videos gained traction (at least a minute of watch time):

• 41 Fireside Chat videos
• 25 Podcast Episodes
• 151 Video Podcast Clips
• 16 Other videos

The 151 clips certainly get views and watch hours, allowing you to grind your way forward. While they can't get you to the 4,000 watch hours alone, they can help you get started. I learned a lot about thumbnails, titles, and descriptions, and it helped me refine my process. It was good practice, but I've since cut back on clips and become more strategic with them.

Subscriber Growth

I'm currently at 246 subscribers, just shy of my next milestone of 250. I should reach it in a few days. (If you haven't subscribed yet, please do and help me cross that threshold!)

I did hit 100 subscribers, going from 68 to 100, and now to 246. I'm very excited about this. As I mentioned, it took me seven years (from 2007 to 2014) to reach 68 subscribers, which felt like an eternity. Getting those first 100 is often considered the hardest step, and the next hundred were much easier. My subscriber milestones are 100, 250, 500, and 1,000.

Getting My First Sponsorship for the Year

The second milestone is that I secured my first sponsored video for the year. It was about digital nomad life, where I interviewed a couple who are friends of mine. This video was sponsored by SafetyWing, and I'm very grateful for their support.

This was my second sponsorship ever, and I've already landed my third, all with less than 246 subscribers. It is possible to get sponsorships. The key, as I'll explain with each story, is relationships. If you don't know people or businesses, it's a much harder road to secure sponsorships, as you'll either need to be discovered by a sponsor or proactively reach out, which can be difficult.

In my book, Path of the Freelancer, I discuss how active clients—clients you already have as a freelancer—represent your biggest opportunity for more paid work. This principle applies directly to the sponsorships I've received.

My first sponsorship last year came through a friend I've known for almost 20 years. His organization, Christian Life TV, had a client called Talking Bibles. This opportunity arose, and I was able to get a sponsorship for that video, which I also distributed on their platform for more exposure.

The second sponsorship, this year's digital nomad video, was with SafetyWing. They had previously sponsored some of my blog posts on jasonscottmontoya.com and https://www.google.com/search?q=paththefreelancer.com (my book's website). They reached out about sponsoring blog content last year, and in a follow-up, they agreed to a second sponsorship. As part of that, I suggested interviewing my digital nomad friends about becoming location-independent entrepreneurs. They live in Mexico and travel the world, and since SafetyWing offers nomad health insurance, it was perfect content for their brand to reach their audience. I arranged the interview, created clips and reels, published it on my website, and included links to their company. Both of these opportunities stemmed from existing relationships.

The third sponsorship I've secured for a future video also came from an existing freelancing client. I was telling her about my YouTube journey, and she offered to help. We'll be creating a couple of different videos, and I want to go above and beyond to make it worthwhile for them to invest in me. Having a sponsor also motivates me to push the content further.

I'm very grateful to have three sponsors at the 250-subscriber mark. My history of blogging since 2014 and podcasting since 2020 gives me credibility and opportunities I might not have had if I had just started YouTube fresh this January.

This year, I've published over 40 fireside chat videos like this one, made specifically for YouTube. Again, I did only one in 2024 and zero before that. This represents huge growth for me—practicing talking to the camera, editing, and publishing. It's different from podcast episodes; I invest a lot more time in editing these videos, often cutting a significant amount of material. Publishing this many YouTube-specific videos, averaging 10 per month across the four months (on top of podcast episodes and clips), is a major milestone for me.

2025 Watch Hours & Breakdown by Month

Let's look at watch hours. In January, I had a little over 60 hours. February was my peak month with 237 watch hours. However, in March and April, I wasn't able to maintain that same level. I did publish a lot of clips in January and February, but the biggest factor in February was my hit video, my most popular video in terms of watch hours of all time. This was my first video discussing my January YouTube analytics, and it took off. The stars aligned, and I was on fire. If you had asked me in February if YouTube was on "easy mode," I would have said yes. But as you can see, I couldn't replicate that success in March and April. I figured some things out, but not everything.

For reference, in 2024, my average monthly watch hours were between 10 and 28 hours. So, even in January, my lowest month this year, I'm still three or four times higher than my 2024 average. I'm still doing well, and I'm grateful for that, but it turns out getting to monetization will be harder than I expected. I'll discuss this more later.

Watch Hours by Type

Let's break down some key metrics by video type:

• Podcast Episodes: 210 watch hours, averaging 8.4 watch hours per episode.
• Fireside Chat Videos (dedicated YouTube videos): 267 watch hours in total, averaging 6.5 watch hours per video.
• Clips: 80 watch hours, averaging about half a watch hour per clip.

While the total watch hours from clips is a decent number, it took 155 clips to get those 80 watch hours. So, while you can force your way towards the watch hour goal with clips, there are more effective methods. It's better for me to produce more podcast episodes, more fireside chats, and then more strategic clips. Going forward, my clips will be five minutes or longer.

Dedicated YouTube videos accumulated the most watch hours in total, but podcast episodes yielded more watch hours per episode. One benefit of podcast episodes is that I'm interviewing someone (or multiple people), and they're incentivized to promote the episode. They're part of the process, so they're likely to share it on their social media and with their friends, family, and community, which helps generate more views and watch hours. When I'm just doing a video like this, where I'm talking to the camera, the promotion falls solely on me. With an interview, you have someone committed to the success of that interview who is more likely to help carry that torch with you.

What Video Lengths Got the Most Watch Hours?

I want to share some insights on video lengths that might be helpful. Looking at the top three most-watched videos by duration:

1. 20 to 40 minutes: This grouping had the most watch hours per video.
2. 80 to 100 minutes
3. 120 to 140 minutes

This is pretty wild to think about because we tend to believe people have short attention spans, but it's my longer content that's delivering more of the watch hours and views. If I narrow it down to five-minute segments:

1. 85 to 90 minutes
2. 35 to 40 minutes
3. 30 to 35 minutes

These apply to all types of videos: podcast episodes and fireside chats.

Can I Grow Old Video Watch Time?

One of my goals has been to get more watch hours from my old content, which I define as any content over three months old. This serves as a baseline for new content. I'm hoping that with YouTube, I don't always have to create new content and can build a baseline of watch hours from older videos. It's very difficult to reach 4,000 watch hours if I have to start from zero every month. So, I want my old watch hours to grow over time.

In January, I had about 10 hours from old content. It dipped, then went back up to about 10 hours in April. I've been able to maintain around 10 watch hours a month from old content, which, over a year, is 120 watch hours. This isn't going to significantly help me reach the 4,000 watch hour goal, so I need that number to grow. A lot of the videos I've been adding and creating in January, February, March, and April aren't yet in that "old" grouping. We'll see next month how that changes, but if it's still at 10 hours, I'll be a little disappointed.

What Defines a Video Hit?

I've categorized my top-performing videos into different tiers:

• Level 3 hit: 50 to 150 watch hours
• Level 2 hit: 15 to 50 watch hours
• Level 1 hit: 5 to 15 watch hours

I've had 16 Level 1 hits, which is awesome. I also have six Level 2 hits and one Level 3 hit. These are all new videos I've done in 2025, and I'm very excited about this. I'm happy when I get a Level 1 hit, meaning five to 15 hours of watch time. Even five watch hours on a video makes me happy.

Top 6 Most Watched Videos in 2025

Let's look specifically at my six most-watched videos. Four of them are podcast episodes, and two are fireside chat videos for YouTube.

1. "I Posted 77 Videos in 31 Days. Here's What Happened." This is my number one video of all time, and it was the one in February that got 130 watch hours.
2. "Overcoming Complex Trauma Through Christ's Love with Allison Miller" (podcast episode)
3. "187 Videos in 59 Days. Here's What Happened." (fireside chat, my follow-up to the number one video)
4. "The Emptiness of Good Christian Behavior" (podcast episode)
5. "Hope in the Shadow of Tyranny" (podcast episode)
6. "Dehumanization: How We Lose Our Humanity" (podcast episode)

These are my top six most popular videos. I'm not a YouTube growth expert; I'm sharing my story and stumbling through this, just like many of you. Hopefully, I can learn from my failures and share those lessons.

From these top videos, three content buckets have risen to the top for me: YouTube advice, Christian content, and political content.

Another thing I do to stay motivated is to go to my YouTube channel, sort videos by "most popular," and look at my top 12. My motivation each month is to get new videos into that top 12. Currently, seven of my top 12 videos are from 2025, which is awesome because it means only five are older, and several are from 2024. Only two of these are older than 2024. So, I'm definitely making progress: more videos in my most popular grouping, progress on subscribers, and progress on popular videos. I'm moving in the right direction.

YouTube Publishing Channel Results

A friend of mine wanted to start a YouTube channel, so from March into April, we did a challenge. The structure was one new YouTube video every weekday for four weeks, totaling 20 videos. I ended up doing 22 because I included a couple of clips, but my focus was on fireside chat videos and podcast episodes, moving away from clips. I wanted to see what would happen.

I have a dedicated video about this challenge that goes into more detail, but I'll quickly run through the insights I learned:

• When publishing many videos, try to get ahead of your schedule.
• Publishing a lot of videos is motivating for harder videos. This was an interesting discovery.
• Volume keeps up morale. When you're doing a lot of videos, some won't perform well, but others will, and that keeps you motivated.
• Thumbnails don't always perform as expected. Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
• New types of videos don't seem to get as much traction. If you venture into a topic or format you haven't done much on, sometimes it won't go anywhere. You have to consider doing a bunch of videos in that category if you want to achieve success.
• Streamlining your video production process will save you time.
• Our most beloved videos can disappoint us the most. The ones we put the most effort into may not get the views we hope for.
• Experimenting doesn't always pay off. Sometimes we try something new, and it doesn't work.
• Simple videos can take off. Sometimes, something very simple, like just talking to a camera, can perform well.
• Use YouTube to give advice. If people ask you for advice, instead of just responding, make a YouTube video and send them the link.
• Learn a new lesson on every video you make.

These are the lessons I learned from my weekday YouTube challenge. You can check out the dedicated video for more details.

Checking in on My YouTube Shorts Experiment

I want to briefly touch on YouTube Shorts. I'm currently running an experiment: three YouTube Shorts every single day, separate from my long-form, wide-format videos. Getting a YouTube sponsor helped with this because I had abandoned YouTube Shorts for a bit as they weren't helping me achieve my main goals. I wanted to re-strategize my approach. The sponsor incentivized me to create a lot of shorts to maximize their exposure, which pushed me to implement my new strategy.

My goal is to continue doing three shorts per weekday for three months. If it doesn't yield results, I might end it sooner. Ultimately, I want to figure out how to use YouTube Shorts to drive watch hours to my longer-form content. If I can achieve that, I'll continue.

One exception is that YouTube Shorts do help gain subscribers. I believe 25-30% of my current subscribers came from Shorts. So, if I didn't do Shorts, I would only be at about 225 YouTube subscribers. From a subscriber standpoint, I might just keep doing them until I reach 1,000, and then, if they're not contributing to watch hours, I might abandon them.

I'm also going to try other experiments. For example, creating dedicated YouTube Shorts where I explicitly record a Short to promote a long-form video. Right now, I'm taking clips from long-form content, turning them into Shorts, and publishing them. I wonder if being more direct, like pitching the value and the hook of a podcast episode within the Short, will actually help get more YouTube watch hours on the wide-format videos. That's something I still need to test, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Additional Lessons Learned From YouTubing

In addition to the insights from my challenge, I want to share four more lessons:

1. Relationships Matter: Having a relationship with your audience leads to people investing more time watching your content and engaging in comments. People I know and share videos with are more likely to watch and comment, and that relationship makes a difference, especially when you're starting out. Having cheerleaders who aren't just strangers is crucial; these are relationships you can develop over time with new people. If you have people in your corner who are interested in your content and engage with it, it makes a huge difference. As I mentioned earlier, it can also lead to other opportunities, like sponsorships. Relationships truly matter; community matters as a YouTuber, something I didn't appreciate as much as I should have before recognizing the YouTube opportunity.

2. Volume Required: I'm trying to take a "deep and wide" approach to YouTube instead of just having one niche. I'm trying to tap into several areas: personal development, business development, freelancing, and socio-political commentary and insight. I'm talking about a lot of different things. I'm banking on the idea that the algorithm will deliver content and videos to people who want to see them and shield them from the videos they don't. Most people I've talked to watch videos from their homepage recommendations, not their subscription feed. I believe algorithms will continue to get smarter, to the point where you'll only see the videos you want to see. This means creators can publish any kind of video they want and trust the algorithm to sort it out for them.

3. Tight Editing: This is an advantage I have due to my background. I'm an editor; I know how to edit my own videos, and I'm ruthless. I'm willing to cut out all kinds of content if I don't think it's contributing or adding value. A video like this, I might record for 55 minutes and cut it down to 35 if I don't feel it's helpful or fruitful, or if it doesn't flow right, I cut it out altogether. This gives me an advantage of having denser videos where the information is valuable throughout, without any fluff.

4. Pinning Videos: On your YouTube channel, you can pin a video for new visitors and for returning subscribers. I've started using this, and it seems that if you pin a video, you can get more views; it almost seems like the algorithm picks it up more and shows it to more people. If you have a hit video, you definitely want to pin it. I've experimented with different videos, switching out the main pinned video based on whatever is hitting at the time, as a way to confirm to the user that there's more similar content if they're interested.

This Feature Should Be Turned On For Your YouTube Channel

Another thing: if you haven't done this on your channel, make sure you turn on the "For You" section of your YouTube channel page. This is your homepage recommender, but it's on your channel page. I've noticed a lot of channels don't have this on. You want that on because if someone clicks on your page, it will recommend the videos it thinks they're most likely to watch. So, I would definitely turn that on if you don't already have it enabled.

Is YouTube on Easy Mode?

If you had asked me in February, "Is YouTube on easy mode?", I probably would have said yes. I thought, "Man, I'm really killing it. I'm doing all these videos. I've got this hit. I'm on top of the world!" Then March came, and while I did pretty well, I couldn't reach the same level of success. The follow-up video to my most successful one, which I thought was even better and more developed with more insights, actually performed worse than the first.

I'm four months in, and I realize YouTube is not on easy mode for normal people. If I had learned all the things I've learned now in the first four months, then maybe in the next four months it'll be on easier mode. We'll see what happens. I have a really big project video in the works with some follow-up videos that might change the game, but I don't know—it might go nowhere.

The journey is up and down. You might think you've figured it out, and then you realize you haven't. But just keep moving, apply those lessons, and you'll get better and better. I have, and I truly see these first four months as a practice ground for me to test different things and see what's working and what's not. I'll figure it out, but it's going to take longer than I expected.

What's Next? A Strategy Pivot

What I wanted to figure out was if I could get monetized on YouTube in three to six months. Some people have, and I see what they're doing. If I took that approach, maybe it would work for me, but that wasn't where I was. People who achieve monetization in three or four months are probably spending three, four, six, or even twelve months preparing for that launch. So, when they launch, they get there quickly because they've already done a lot of the work. They have a very specific focus and advantages that allow them to accelerate the journey. For most people, it's just going to take longer.

I thought I could get there faster, but it's not looking like that will be the case based on my history so far. My mission for the last four months was to see if that was possible and how to do it. It turns out I can't do that. So, I'm shifting my expectation: this is going to take a year. I'm four months in, which means I'm looking at another eight months, but it could be longer—I'd say eight to twelve more months before I get there.

Therefore, I need to take a different, more sustainable approach to YouTube. My initial thought was to get monetized, start earning income, and create a flywheel: more videos, more income, and continued growth. But since it's going to take me a year to get there, I need another way to generate income.

I'm pivoting my strategy to focus on content that allows me to monetize it without having to rely on YouTube's monetization programs. This includes:

• Promoting my own products: I have a book, Path of a Freelancer, and another for small business owners called The Jump. I also have a few courses and programs.
• My freelancing work: While I have more work than I need right now and aren't actively seeking more clients, I do have digital products I can sell.
• Affiliate marketing: I'm an affiliate for some software and tools that I genuinely love.

If I have to choose between two videos to produce, I can now prioritize a video that will either promote one of my digital products, promote one of my affiliate partners, or is likely to be a big hit. This allows me to prioritize the videos I publish and save other videos for later, once I am monetized. If I can start making income now, it creates more of an incentive structure to keep creating videos that make money. This makes the journey more sustainable because I'm earning along the way. Doing a bunch of free videos for another year without any return is a lot of work. So, I'm pivoting to create some return while providing value and growing the YouTube channel simultaneously.

I started doing this at the very beginning of my YouTube journey, but because of some early success on YouTube, I thought, "Oh, maybe I can get there." I ended up pivoting, leaning into YouTube trying to get monetized, but that didn't work. So, I'm going back to that original plan: focusing on the types of videos that can create a financial benefit, either directly or indirectly, or that I know will be a huge hit.

My goal is to make the journey towards monetization through YouTube AdSense sustainable. The cool thing about this is that it eliminates the need to get huge numbers on every YouTube video. For example, I recently did a video talking about the invoice system I use with Harpoon as a freelancer (link in description below if you're interested). It might only get 50 or 100 views, but if one or two people sign up and I get five dollars a month for that signup, that's 10 bucks a month. If those people are signed up for a year, that video has made me $120. I only need 100 views for two people to convert into buyers. If it gets more, that's great, but it's contributing to my watch hours, and I'm also earning along the way. This is another way I can make those videos financially beneficial.

Getting sponsors is another option. The videos I'll do with my upcoming sponsor are already funded. Sponsorships are a great opportunity to fund videos that I want to create but don't necessarily have a direct monetization mechanism without ads.

Fundamentally, there's the reality of YouTube—what works and what doesn't. I'm adapting my strategy to allow me to continue doing YouTube, but also adjusting it so that it ties more directly with my podcasting, my blogging, and ultimately, my goal of monetizing my content creation.

These are things I've learned, and some insights I've gleaned. What do you think? What lessons have you learned on your YouTube journey? How have you pivoted? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

I'm Jason Scott Montoya, and I'll see you on the next one.