How Much Money YouTube Paid My Brother After 90 Days Of Getting Monetized

My brother Zach is 50 years old and he's been working in the trades for 29 years and his body was starting to break down from all that hard work. And he asked me, "Bro, how can I make money without straining my body anymore?" And of course, I suggested YouTube. And he looked at me like I was crazy. Shane, that's for kids and influencers only. I work with my hands, not cameras. I'm not techsavvy. I don't know how to make videos. I've never even used a camera. I barely even watch YouTube. But I convinced them to do it anyways. And guess what happened? 21 days after posting his first video, he got monetized and he became the Zach of all trades. And today, I'm breaking down exactly what happened in his first 90 days. Now, if you appreciate me doing this type of content and keeping you updated on this, let me know by gently tapping that like button. And let's jump into it right now. All right, so just as a quick backstory before we jump into getting started, I usually launch a new channel every single year just to basically test to see if there's anything new when it comes to growing a small channel because growing a big channel is different than growing a small channel. So I like to launch a new channel every single year. And this year I was thinking about launching like a finance channel or an investing channel kind of just sharing how I invest. But when my brother came to me saying how he wanted to make money online so that he didn't have to work with his hands and kind of like break his back anymore, I decided I was going to help him launch his channel instead. And I was going to document the entire process just like I did last year when I launched a B2B channel which is called Shane Hummus the content growth engine where I talk about advanced strategies on how to grow and make money on YouTube. And that channel made it to $30,000 a month in the very first month. And I documented the whole process. So with that as a backstory, let's talk about launching this channel. And first, let me tell you about our competition. So, we thought we were so clever picking the name Zack of All Trades. It's kind of like Jack of All Trades, but instead of Jack, it's Zach. Very clever, right? Well, the only problem is there's literally dozens of other channels with the exact same name, possibly even hundreds. But one of those channels caught our attention, and that was this one right here, Zack of All Trades, with 7,000 subscribers. And we basically jokingly decided that we were going to be the Zack of All Trades. And to do that, we'd have to beat this guy. So, strategy one is to pick what you already know. So, our first strategy was picking Zach's niche correctly. And this was actually the easiest decision that we made. We picked what Zach already knew best, which is the trades industry. And why did we do that? Because he's worked in the trades for 29 years. And when you pick your expertise, you skip years of learning. And this gave him instant credibility with viewers. Now, the next problem is that Zach was not very technically savvy. So, we basically had to make his videos as minimalist as possible. And so, that's exactly what we did. We basically designed his videos to be as simple as possible. No fancy editing, no fancy camera needed. Anything that could possibly mess him up on a technical level, we completely discarded it because keeping things simple is absolutely key when it comes to consistently posting content. Now, the next thing that we focused on in month one was finding the right video ideas. And if you've been watching this channel, you know that the video idea is the single most important thing that will make or break your video. So for Zach's first video, I was the one who looked for the video idea. And I found this one right here. Highest paying trade jobs that nobody's talking about. This was from Adam Zwingler. He had about 44,000 subscribers. And the video at the time had about 1.7 million views. So this is a method of finding videos that are very likely to succeed that I've talked about many times before. I call it the icon method or I've recently started calling it the hot dog method. And by the way, if you want to know how to find the right video ideas, if you want help picking your niche, attend my live training this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, down in the description and the pin comment below. On this live training, we'll go over exactly how we grew Zach's channel. We'll give you an update on how his channel's doing. We'll be going over the most important things when it comes to growing and making money on YouTube. And we'll only do this presentation one time. It is a one time only presentation. If you miss out on this, you'll probably never see it again. Plus, we'll be giving away an AI that makes YouTube content creation significantly easier that we've been working on for a long time. And on top of that, I will answer every single question you have on growing and making money on YouTube. So, definitely don't miss out on it. Click the link in the description and the pin comment below. Make sure you put it on your calendar, and I look forward to seeing you there. Oh, and by the way, it's completely free. So, there's literally no reason why you shouldn't attend. But anyways, we took this video right here and we created our own version of the video, highest paying trade jobs that no one is talking about. And 3 weeks later, this video had 74,000 views. Yes, literally the very first video that we posted on his channel blew up. And he was able to get his channel monetized in 21 days. Now, in the first 30 days, Zach posted about 12 to 15 videos. And that's about one video every 2 days or three videos per week. And some days, we'd only gained 2 to 10 subscribers. And by the way, the very first day we posted this video was May 26th. But on June 14th, he gained 349 subscribers in a single day. Aka, the video blew up. And it is one of the most exciting things the first time this happens to you, right? Your channel's getting a little bit of subscribers here and there. It's getting maybe a few hundred views a day, but it's nothing crazy. And maybe you're making like a few dollars a day, and it's it's nice, but nothing compares to the feeling of that first video taking off. And then on June 15th, Zach hit his first milestone. He hit 1.3,000 subscribers and then 4,000 watch hours a day after that. He applied for the YouTube partner program, got accepted, and on June 25th, 29 days after posting his first video on the channel, he had a $214 AdSense day. And that is a $78,000 a year run rate. Now, for the first month after uploading his first video, he made about $577 from AdSense and he got 5,000 subscribers. And on top of that, he started making money from affiliate marketing as well. He was basically putting an affiliate link to a course that is really good at helping people land trade jobs. And every time that course would make a sale, he would get a large percentage of that. So, he'd actually make a few hundred. So, he was making money from that, too. But this is where Zach made a massive mistake. He called me panicking and he was basically saying that his views had dropped into the ground and also his AdSense had dropped as well. See what happened is for some reason Zach started watching YouTube content and started watching YouTube guru videos and some YouTube guru told him to enable player for education. Right? They told him to turn on player for education which is a monetization option and this was a terrible mistake. Right? This feature is meant for videos to be shown in school. So, it's meant for grade school, middle school, high school students, and only for them to watch academic content while they are in school. So, those are the only types of channels that would ever want to enable this. But some random guru didn't explain the nuances and said that, oh, if you make education content, you should enable player for education. And so, Zach did that and it absolutely tanked his views and his revenue. And you could see that Zach went from making $214 a day down to making like $10 to $30 a day. Now, at this point, I basically had to jump in, take action. We turned off Player for Education in all the videos, and we also took some actions to make sure that advertisers knew that this is a channel that's safe to put ads on because not only did the views drop, but also the revenue per 1,000 views dropped, too. So, we were getting a revenue of 1,000 views of around 5 to 10, and it dropped all the way down to like $3 per 1,000 views or lower. And so I basically had to jump in there, put a bunch of channel keywords in there to make sure that advertisers knew that this is a channel that they didn't have to worry about advertising to kids on. So lesson there is make sure you're very careful about the YouTube advice that you listen to. Make sure you're listening to YouTube advice from people who actually know what they're doing. They need to have a verifiable channel where not only are they getting views and subscribers, but more importantly, they're actually making money, right? And that's something that I like to be very transparent about on this channel. Before I ever taught anybody how to do YouTube, I was making $300,000 plus dollars a month from YouTube. And the reason I started teaching people is because of the fact that so many people saw the success I was having and they started coming to me asking me how I was doing it. So you can see here May 26 got about 85 subscribers the very first day the video was uploaded. And then June 26 got all the way up to 5,64 subscribers. So got all the way up over 5,000 subscribers in the first month. And then you can see a big plateau here. So from June 26th to August 26th, yeah, we still did grow pretty steadily, but there was also a pretty big plateau, right? It kind of leveled off here. Now, by the way, if you're curious about how we kind of helped him escape the sandbox or being shadowbanned or basically YouTube not promoting his channel, that is something that a lot of people have issues with on YouTube and there is ways to escape it. So, if you're curious about how to do that, again, attend the live training this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. do not miss out on it. So, we spent most of month two basically doing damage control on the mistake that Zach made here. And the growth definitely did slow down quite a bit. And so, around August 26, this is what it was kind of looking like. Like, he was getting around 7,000 views a day. He was getting about 94 subscribers a day and he made about $73. Now, do keep in mind this is just from AdSense alone. He's monetizing in other ways. For instance, he's getting affiliate sales during this time as well. And each time he gets an affiliate sale, it's like a few hundred. So, it's really good money, but still, this is not where we want to be, especially considering that on June 25th, we had a $214 day, right? We didn't want to be there. All right, so going into month three, $73 a day was not going to cut it. We wanted to hit it big, right? We wanted to make some big money. And luckily, all the changes that we made in month two led to a huge explosion in month three. For instance, on September 7th, he had a $355 day. And on September 10th, he had a $447 day. Just to put that in perspective, that's over $160,000 year run rate. And that's not even counting his other revenue streams. So yeah, basically his channel's doing great. I predict that within the first year of starting this channel, he's going to make anywhere between 100 and $300,000. And our goal was making $100,000 in the first year, but I believe he's actually going to exceed that goal by quite a bit. All right, quick break. This Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, I'm hosting a free live workshop called How to Finally Profit from YouTube with AI. It's happening live on November 11th, 2025. So, make sure to mark that down right now. So, if you've been struggling to find your niche or you don't want to spend months or even years creating videos in a niche that's not profitable, then this workshop is for you because for everyone who shows up live, I'll be giving away my niche validator 2.2. This is the newest version of my AI powered niche validation tool that helps you to instantly test and uncover profitable YouTube niches before you waste time creating content that doesn't convert. And it's been refined and updated based on real channel data. And I'll be giving it away completely free, but only during this live workshop. And just a quick heads up, I will be turning this into a full software product at some point in the future. So, this version may not be available for free much longer. So, if you've been waiting to get it, this is a good time to do it now. So, attend the free live workshop by clicking that link down the description in the pin comment below to grab it. Oh, and by the way, you'll also be able to ask me questions live. So, I look forward to meeting you. See you this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Now, additionally, we passed up our arch nemesis, Zack of All Trades. And in fact, we passed him up within a month and a few days, but a challenger emerged. All of a sudden, this other gentleman who didn't pop up before for some reason started popping up. So, yes, there was a new Zach of all trades and he had slightly more subscribers than us. So, stay tuned for the next episode to see if we pass him up as well because now we have a new channel to beat. But anyways, we will give you updates on everything that's happening with Zach's channel and we'll do that on this channel. But if you want to hear right away, then go ahead and attend the live training down in the description and the pin comment below. Definitely don't want to miss out on it. It'll be the only time we do it. Plus, I'll give you updates on Zach. We have an awesome AI to give you, have a great presentation. It's all completely free and I will answer any question you have on growing and making money on YouTube. So, don't miss out on it. Make sure you put it in your calendar as well. Click that link in the description in the pin comment below and I look forward to seeing you there. And for people that are very serious about growing and making money on YouTube, if you want to do one-on-one coaching with myself and my team, then go ahead and click that link down the description. The pin comment below should be the second link down there, and you can apply for coaching. We are very picky about who we work with. We also have limited slots. We can only work with so many people one-on-one, but if you're very serious about growing and making money on YouTube and you want to do it faster and easier with more convenience, then go ahead and apply for our coaching. And on this call, we'll figure out where you are right now, where you want to be. We'll make a plan to get there, and we'll see if we are a good fit to work together or not. Also, check out this video I did talking about how we helped Josh grow his channel from basically making no money all the way up to over $186,000 in a single month. And you can check that out by clicking right here.