1 month experience of a 35y/o first time content creator

This reddit helped me a lot and now I want to share all my lessons I learned and my perspective after starting my journey as a content creator on Youtube.

TLDR version:

• Start the editing process as soon as you can!
• Perfectionism is slowing down progress
• The quote I repeat to myself daily: The death of perfection is the birth of momentum.
• People go on youtube to learn or to laugh, so you achieve either one of those, ideally both
• I immediately uploaded my first video without producing more and this caused a huge pressure, because since then I was constantly working on the next video to establish steady uploads -> I would produce at least 2-3 videos in advance to have some breathing room
• Filming my content felt like the easiest part
• I had a long mental blockage when it came to reviewing what I filmed and making my first steps with learning how to cut a video
• Fumbled around with Capcut to quickly realize how the paywall is lurking behind every corner
• Landed at DaVinci, which felt like a behemoth, but gave me confidence step by step after every little thing I learned 
• Realisation, that having a script before starting to film will make life so much easier
• The script doesn't have to be complex. Just a rough outline goes a long way

Long version / my background:

I am a solo traveller in my mid 30‘s with the urge to do creative work in my evenings instead of consuming media. I love to travel and good food during my trips, so I grabbed a camera (Osmo Pocket 3) and started vlogging for the first time in my life (in English, which is not my native language). I did this for 3 consecutive trips: small Sicily road trip + 2 full trips to Japan.

I started reviewing and cutting my videos only after the 3rd trip (my first big mistake!).

In hindsight it would have been MUCH better to at least produce 1 video from the first trip. Now it‘s a mystery black box each time I start working on a new video (1 video = 1  day travel vlog).

My first video took me a very long time. I never produced a youtube video in my life, so I had to learn the editing software completely from scratch.

People recommend CapCut as a beginner, but I would highly advise against this. 

Once you learn the basics of DaVinci, you realise how powerful it is and how you can slowly expand your skillset to get more efficient.

After uploading my first video I learned how important it is to have a vision / structure before filming. I never thought this would be that important, as I thought "I'm just freestyle vlogging so no need to plan anything".

Another point is of course the YouTube algorithm. It is a humbling experience to get barely any views. On the other hand I embrace this and I celebrate every little "win". I still remember the time I got my first like!

Now after one month and 4 uploads I got 7 subscribers (6 of them are friends lol), 4.4k impressions with 3.1% CTR and 261 views in total.

Ironically my first and therefore worst video is the best performing one.

I will go back now and finalise my next upload and remind myself again:

The death of perfection is the birth of momentum.