How Long It Takes to Get 10,000 YouTube Subscribers

This post was originally published in Marina Mogilko's newsletter, where you can learn more about starting a lucrative YouTube career.

Here are some stats people were sharing on Twitter about how long it took YouTube creators to get subscribers (averaged):

• 1 million subscribers: 3,873 videos
• 100,000-1 million subscribers: 1,171 videos
• 10,000-100,000 subscribers: 418 videos
• 1,000-10,000 subscribers: 151 videos

The problem with these stats is that they take into account all the channels on YouTube, and that’s around 37 million. Not everyone comes to YouTube to become a creator!

When you're serious about growing your channel, it takes much less to build that initial audience.

Read More: 10 Solid Ways to Get 1,000 YouTube Subscribers

By serious, I mean:

• Posting at least once a week for a year
• Talking about a niche topic, but presenting information as if the audience were fifth-graders
• Taking titles, thumbnails, and YouTube optimization seriously

How Long It Took to Get 10,000 Subscribers on 3 Different YouTube Channels

Here are some stats on how long it took me to grow three of my YouTube channels:

Are you surprised to see how many videos attracted 10,000 subscribers? Or how many days passed before I reached that milestone? Keep reading to learn what happened on all these channels.

1. Marina Mogilko (Russian channel)

I started this channel in December 2014 and had no idea how YouTube works. Despite those growing pains, it only took 39 videos and 390 days to reach 10,000 subscribers. This is pretty good, considering it's a Russian language channel. That's a smaller market compared to my other two channels.

2. Linguamarina (teaching English in English)

I started this channel in February 2016, two years after Marina Mogilko. It's my fastest-growing channel right now with 80,000 people subscribing monthly.

The key reasons for that are:

• Creating videos for a large market.
• Sharing a valuable expertise.
• Relatability. I am not a native-speaker of English, but many people say it’s easier to learn from me.
• I "hacked" the algorithm by using the right thumbnails and titles.

Before Linguamarina took off, I made 23 videos in 180 days to reach 10,000 subscribers.

Thousands of people want to learn, speak, and write English better. I took advantage of that by sharing valuable lessons, like the YouTube Short below about cutting the word "very" from your vocabulary.

3. Silicon Valley Girl (business and income)

The growth of this channel has been crazy. I started Silicon Valley Girl with a video titled, "Buying a Lamborghini After Selling a Company to Microsoft," with me and a Lambo on the thumbnail. I knew it would work. And honestly, it wasn’t me who sold the company. It was my friend, Matt, and that was his Lambo. The whole video was about him.

And wow! It took me just 14 days to reach 1,000 subscribers. Then I just needed 44 days and four videos to reach 10,000.

How did I do this? Here are four key reasons:

• Started with a click-worthy video (a questionable approach because the audience wasn’t exactly entrepreneurs, which was the initial goal).
• Announced the video on social media.
• YouTube recommended the video to my subscribers.
• Optimized the video for more views with click-worthy titles. That was a good start, but now I'm looking to build a more engaged audience on that channel.

How to Get 10,000 YouTube Subscribers

So what are the key takeaways from my 10,000-subscriber journey?

Make sure your first videos are searchable, which means people are actually searching for those topics on YouTube. Make sure the titles are juicy and intriguing. Imagine the views you can get from "Buying a Lamborghini After Selling a Company to Microsoft" versus "A Successful Entrepreneur’s Story."

Aim for a bigger market, but start with niche content. I started Linguamarina, my English channel, with videos about the TOEFL exam. The content was highly-searchable and helped me build my initial audience.

Lastly, learn how YouTube works. Familiarize yourself with the power of SEO, attractive thumbnails, and good titles. This will help you take advantage of the algorithm and fast-track your journey to 10,000 subscribers.

Need a smaller goal to reach? Here's how long it takes to get just 100 subscribers on YouTube.