Ali Abdaal's 3 Stages of Growth

Aug 10, 2023

∙ Paid

Ali is a YouTube legend. He started 6 years ago teaching people how to get into medical school. Now he's “the most followed productivity expert.”

And he has:

He has also taught 1000’s of people how to grow a YouTube channel.

Ali breaks audience growth into 3 distinct stages:

Let's dive into each one to identify where you're at and what your next steps should be.

Stage 1: Get Going

The most common reason someone fails to build an audience is that they simply never start. I did this for years.

Most never start because they’re:

Afraid to suck. You can call this a combination of perfectionism and Imposter Syndrome.
Waiting for the right moment. “I'm just too busy this month.”
Trying to perfect the system before ever trying it. As Ali calls it, you're trying to be an “Architect” where you perfectly plan everything out in advance—but most people need to be an “Archaeologist.” Start digging and figure out where to focus later.

Ali recommends:

If you're going for YouTube, make the first 10 videos on your phone. Don't worry about the ideal recording setup. For Twitter/LinkedIn, don't do videos, carousels, or threads. Just write simple text-only posts.
Lower your quality bar. No one will notice or remember your first few posts/videos. YouTuber MKBHD (16M subscribers) had 72 subscribers after 100 videos. No one judges him for his first terrible videos.
Cap how long you spend scripting and editing. Just get it out there and move on.
Prove to yourself you can be consistent.

As Ali likes to say: “The first 50 videos are for you, the next 50 are for your audience.”

Don't worry about the response you get from your first few dozen posts. Instead, use that time to get into the habit and get better at the process.

Once you’ve proven to yourself you can be consistent, now it's time to:

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