For a bit more then 16 months I’ve been running my own little YouTube experiment. I started a channel in February 2025, without any experience in content creation or YouTube Channel management whatsoever. It was me, a niche game I picked and an AI Tool to help me navigate the murky depths of the (in)famous algorithm. Here’s how I’ve managed to go from zero to almost 100 video’s, 46.000+ views, 500.000 impressions and 226 subscribers with zero budget or experience.

How it started

Last year I was at a crossroads with myself. I decided I finally wanted to give YouTube a real try to get me out of my comfort zone. But I also really did not want to put my face in videos or anything like that. I’m a public speaker, I have no fear of standing in front of large audiences. But the thought of recording myself and uploading it to YouTube somehow felt different. So I came up with a compromise: Starting a faceless YouTube Channel.

Now it’s almost 16 months after my first video and I’ve enjoyed every bit of it so far. I’ve even done a few videos where I narrated my content. Still no face-reveals, but recording my own voice and editing it below a video is already a step in the right direction in my opinion. And it worked!

As of right now, my channel sits at the following metrics:

• 226 subscribers, and growing organically every week
• 98 videos published, totalling 46.182 views combined
• Over half a million (500.000!) impressions gained
• A monthly audience hovering between 1500 and 3500 users

How I did this

A short answer to the question “How did I do this?” is simple: I just started. But that is not the answer that helps others. So here’s how I got my channel off the ground in a condensed form.

I started with looking at my possibilities. I wanted to make content that is accessible for viewers, but also that’s manageable for myself to create. Since I work full-time, I don’t have hours and hours available to edit videos or write scripts. That made the choice of starting a faceless channel quite an obvious one. And as with most faceless channels, you quite quickly end up with gaming content. I’m an avid gamer myself, so videos about my hobby made even more sense to me.

After doing some more research I opted to start recording the so-called “let’s play” format style video’s leaning into ASMR-type content. This format was perfect for me. It allowed me to both just play games that I loved, do minimal editing into the content itself and leave out the voice-overs all-together. With most ASMR-content, it’s all about relaxing, getting viewers to just drift off or watch along without any pressure being put on them.

The game I picked for this content-style was Tiny Glade. It’s quite a niche game, but basically it revolves around you as the player just creating Tiny Glade diorama-like environments with tools like houses, trees, set-pieces and landscaping. You can see an example of the gameplay in one of my video’s I linked at the bottom of this post. Oh, and it has 10/10 on Steam, so yeah, it’s great! (no, I do not get paid for saying this!

Managing the channel

Managing the channel was it’s own challenge. I had no idea how much extra work goes into YouTube video uploading. Fortunately, we live in the day and age of AI, so with the help of my own AI-project skills and Claude I was able to turn the whole Meta-data part into an automated process.

My content schedule itself basically looks like this now:

• Once a week I play 1-2 hours of Tiny Glade
• I Screen record the gameplay from start to finish
• Then I edit the gameplay in Premiere Pro and I create 1-2 shorts and a long-form video per play session
• With Canva I create minimalist-style thumbnails
• I Use my AI-agent to manage the meta-data aspect (Title, description, tags, video release time)
• Finally I Upload everything to YouTube and I schedule the video releases throughout the month.

I basically thought the AI Agent everything it needed to know about my content, and in turn it now acts as a marketing assistant. It provides me with ready-made titles, description, tags and SEO attributes for all my videos. It’s great! I input the metrics of my channel regularly, so now it can even tell me the best time to upload and release videos for maximum visibility.

You can read more about how I manage this all with AI in this post about how I save 45 minutes per YouTube Upload with Claude AI. Or you can download (for free) my own custom Claude Skills if you want to give it a shot. You can grab them here.

Closing off

So yeah, that’s my journey of starting my own YouTube channel. It’s not hard, and while I’m not boasting about having 10000’s of subscribers (yet), I’m very proud of the results so far. With just a few play sessions a month and a couple of hours of editing I am able to maintain a full channel, provide weekly content and grow an audience. All from zero.

So, if you’re still on the fence about starting your own channel the best tip I can give you is to start by looking at what fits your schedule. That’s what worked for me. I wanted to create content at a pace that would fit me. I did not want to impose a schedule onto myself that would eventually burn me out of what should be a fun hobby.

Growing a YouTube channel is a challenge, it does not happen over night, despite what most “influencers” would like you to believe. It takes time, effort, passion and creativity. But once you know what you want to create, there are so many tools out there to help you along. And trust me, you don’t need a team, coach or a budget to use them well.