How Josh Ryan Grew 100K+ YouTube Subscribers (Full Growth System)
Josh Ryan · Founder, Cleverpreneur
About this episode
Josh Ryan joins Roi to break down how he grew a YouTube channel past 100,000 subscribers over 8 years, starting from a high school Instagram page in 2014 and a first video filmed awkwardly in his bedroom.
He walks through how he builds a YouTube video: start with a good idea, write the title and thumbnail before you film, open with a hook that backs up the promise, then simply avoid boring people. He also explains why chasing views can box a channel in, and how one topical video can bring in the audience that carries everything after it.
The conversation also covers why nearly all of his clients came through his own content, why he thinks short clips rarely send people straight to the full episode, how YouTube pays creators, and why content written by AI tends to lose trust rather than build it.
Key takeaways
- Don't wait to be perfect. However good your first video is, 100 videos later it will be much better.
- Chasing views can backfire. If a video takes off with the wrong audience, YouTube keeps showing your work to people who don't want it.
- Settle the idea, title and thumbnail before you film. On YouTube people have to choose to click, so a great video nobody clicks on goes nowhere.
- Lighting beats an expensive camera. A light for a couple of hundred dollars did more for his videos than a $2,000 camera.
- Share how you did it, not how to do it. Nobody can argue with your own experience.
- Give it time. A video every second week for 6 months beats burning out after 2 months of trying to post everything.
Who is Josh Ryan?
Josh Ryan is the founder of Cleverpreneur, which helps podcasts and YouTube channels across New Zealand grow, from titles and thumbnails through to full production and strategy. He started an Instagram page of inspirational quotes in high school in 2014, spent years learning how to grow social accounts, and began working with clients and posting on YouTube after finishing school in 2017. After 8 years on YouTube, his own channel recently passed 100,000 subscribers. He grew up in Nelson and is now based in Auckland.
Find Josh Ryan
Questions
Who is Josh Ryan?
Josh Ryan is the founder of Cleverpreneur, a business that helps New Zealand podcasts and YouTube channels grow, and a creator whose own YouTube channel has passed 100,000 subscribers.
What is this episode of The Morning Marketer about?
Josh explains how he grew his YouTube channel and how he helps clients grow theirs, covering ideas, titles and thumbnails, hooks, keeping people watching, and how YouTube pays creators.
Do short clips send people to the full episode?
Josh thinks they rarely do directly. Clips build familiarity over time, so when a longer video turns up later the viewer already trusts the person and is more likely to click.
