---
title: 'I Monetized This Channel in 12 Days to Prove It''s Not Luck - Just Copy Me'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=KHhUwdFXKyA'
video_id: 'KHhUwdFXKyA'
date: 2026-08-14
duration_sec: 879
---

# I Monetized This Channel in 12 Days to Prove It's Not Luck - Just Copy Me

> Source: [I Monetized This Channel in 12 Days to Prove It's Not Luck - Just Copy Me](https://youtube.com/watch?v=KHhUwdFXKyA)

## Summary

The video demonstrates how to monetize a YouTube channel quickly using AI tools and a 'ghost niche' strategy. The creator claims to have made $2,948 in 23 days with only seven videos and $175 in costs, emphasizing that success comes from following strict rules rather than luck.

### Key Points

- **Channel Monetization Results** [00:01] — Started channel on May 4th, posted two videos by May 5th, reached 400 views per day within 3 days, and tens of thousands of views within a week. Monetized on May 18th, earning $2,948 in 23 days with an RPM of $3.52.
- **Top Video Performance** [01:12] — Most popular video has 743,000 views and earned $1,386. Posted before monetization, but after monetization, the channel started making over $50 per day.
- **Low Cost, High Return** [01:39] — Only seven videos were created, costing $175 total. With that investment, the channel earned $2,948, demonstrating a high return on investment.
- **Ghost Niches Strategy** [02:07] — Rule number one: target 'ghost niches'—topics nobody else has covered on YouTube. This is the opposite of copying successful channels, which no longer works due to YouTube's AI detectors and updates.
- **Examples of Ghost Niches** [03:29] — Successful ghost niches include gas prices news, Florida real estate news, factory shutdowns, country music artist biographies, WNBA coverage, and specific golf topics. These niches have no faceless channels competing.
- **Micro-Niche Success Stories** [04:24] — Examples: 'Bottled Verdict' (alcohol reviews) got 5.1 million views in 6 months; 'Jaden's Corner' (cigars) and a business casual fashion channel got 3.7 million views in 2 months.
- **Thumbnail Formats** [07:59] — Rule number two: use a consistent thumbnail format—white rectangle, black text, and an arrow. This format is original per niche, even if used across different channels.
- **Using Vid Ninjas for Thumbnails** [09:02] — Demonstrates using Vid Ninjas to replace items in thumbnails (e.g., golf club with work boots) to generate new niche ideas quickly, like work boots or fishing rods.
- **Avoid Fully AI-Generated Videos** [10:37] — Rule number three: avoid fully AI-generated visuals. In 2026, YouTube's rules make it risky to monetize such channels. AI tools are okay for occasional use, but not for entire videos.
- **Beware of AI Tool Promotions** [12:12] — YouTube coaches often promote AI tools they own or have affiliate links for. The creator received an offer for a 70% affiliate commission but declined, as he won't promote tools he wouldn't use himself.
- **Essential Tools Only** [13:31] — Only necessary tools: research (Velio), scripting (Claude or ChatGPT), voiceover (various programs), editing (freelancers on Fiverr/Upwork/ytjobs, ~$20 per video), and thumbnails (Photoshop or Nano Banana). Everything else is a luxury.

### Conclusion

The video concludes that success on YouTube is not luck but the result of following a strict set of rules: targeting ghost niches, using consistent thumbnail formats, and avoiding fully AI-generated content. With minimal costs and the right tools, anyone can replicate this process.

## Transcript

videos, I monetized this YouTube channel. And in case you're wondering, yes, I used AI to create the script, I used AI to create the audio, and I used AI to create some of the visuals. So, in this video, I'm going to show you the
step-by-step process on exactly how you can do this yourself. But first, let me show you the numbers. So, I started this YouTube channel on May 4th. That day, I posted one single video. Then on May 5th, I posted the second video. And in
the next 3 days, I was already getting 400 views per day. If I keep scrolling, you can see that within a week, I was already getting tens of thousands of views. Now, if I go up to custom, and I click on May 18th, which is the day I
was officially monetized, you can see that this channel has made $2,948 in just 23 days. And if I scroll down, you'll see my RPM is $3.52, which if you don't know, RPM just means how much YouTube is going to pay me per
1,000 views. So, every 1,000 views I get, YouTube pays me $3.52. Okay? So, today is June 10th, and this month so far, the channel has made $1,443. If I go over to my most popular video,
it has 743,000 views, and that's paid me $1,386. Now, keep in mind, I posted this video before I was monetized. So, a lot of But when the channel was finally monetized, I started making over $50
the analytics of the channel. Now, something crazy that you might not be taking into consideration is that I've only posted seven videos. To create only posted seven videos. To create these seven videos, I only paid $175.
Again, I made the majority of it with AI besides the editing. So, with $175, I made $2,948. Now, you could say I got lucky, but I also monetized this YouTube channel in 9 days. This other YouTube channel, I did
it in 15 days. This one, I did it in 28 days. And this dead monetized YouTube channel was revived in just 13 days. This does not happen by accident. This happened because I follow a very strict set of rules. And rule number one is to
only target ghost niches. Now, ghost niches is the complete opposite of what tell you to find a successful YouTube channel and to just copy that niche. To copy his video ideas. To copy his thumbnails. But that doesn't work,
They've done a lot of updates. They have their own AI detectors and they know if you grabbed someone's YouTube script and reworded it, right? They're not stupid. someone's video ideas. You can't do that anymore with YouTube automation. That
sentence coming from me is crazy, okay? Because I started in 2018 launching guess what? What we did at that time was kind of just copy channels. I don't like Moist Critical video because I was copying other people.
Yeah, that was that was random. And listen, in doing that strategy, I made millions of dollars. And again, yes, millions. One single celebrity news YouTube channel paid me over $1 million. One single YouTube video paid me over
$98,000 and it was about the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard court case. That was copying what other people were posting, which explained why when I tried starting new channels with that same strategy, it would take me a very long
work. But the last five YouTube channels I launched, which are the ones I just back-to-back. And again, I did this by following ghost niches. These are niches that nobody else has posted on YouTube. If you sit back and and you look at
that so many topics haven't been covered. You're going to realize that if doing and post something that's never been posted on YouTube, again, not meaning original, just that nobody has done it, it's going to work. For
example, news about gas prices, nobody was doing it, I did it, it worked. News about real estate in Florida, news about factory shutting down, biography videos about country music artists, videos covering the WNBA. What else did I do? I
be sitting there and you're like, "Golf? There's a [ __ ] ton of videos about golf is, but at the time there wasn't any faceless channels doing it. And when it there's only so many formats of thumbnails that we can do because
also not a big company like ESPN that they can just post highlights. Which, because there is no face behind the YouTube channel, gives us the advantage of being able to micro-niche about something very specific about golf. For
YouTube channels out there about alcohol. But this channel right here called Bottled Verdict focuses only on alcohol. And it talks about which ones cheapest. This YouTube channel here started 6 months ago and it already has
5.1 million views. Now, there's probably a a famous YouTuber out there that shows his face and talks about cigars. Well, this YouTube channel here called Jaden's Corner does literally just that. He hasn't posted many videos, but if you
again, yes, there's a lot of YouTube channels about golf, but if you look at here, he talks about the best and cheapest golf clubs you can buy. He if you look at his uploads, you know, it's it's not really that bad. Now,
YouTubers out there that talk about fashion and how to dress business casual. Well, this faceless YouTube channel does it. He started 2 months ago and his YouTube channel has already gotten 3.7 million views. Now, okay,
cool. Micro-niche and coming up with something original. How do you know it's rule number two. But first, if you're truly serious about starting a faceless understand what I'm telling you in this video and you see the vision and you
execute it, you can click the link in the description of this video or in the And that's going to take you to my school community, which is not only the school, but it's also one of the highest-rated YouTube communities.
hear me out, when you join this community, you're going to get over 150 video tutorials on exactly how I made over $2 million on YouTube. In the most of the main videos like how to set up your account, how to set up your
YouTube channel, how to find a niche, coming up with video ideas, writing scripts manually and with AI, how to create voice-overs, editing your videos team, how to create thumbnails in
list of niches, you're going to be able to find a lot of competitors that we've inspiration from them. In the 2026 updates, you're going to find all of this year's updates, which by the way, I update this community every single
month. Scrolling down, you're going to see the daily niches module, where every single day we post a very interesting original YouTube channel that we find, again with the sole purpose of inspiring you with your own idea. And in the fifth
module, you're going to see recorded live sessions, because if you don't know, in this community, I go live every single week. And this is where I speak with you directly, answer any questions, review your channels, all of that good
obviously missed two years' worth of live calls, but do not worry because they're all recorded in this module, and they come with little summaries, too. content, but you do want to show your face and grow your channel that way,
there's also a full module for you called hybrid channels. And lastly, you get free background music, which is where I paid a group of producers to create original background music, so you can, you know, use in your videos and
if I go over to the wins tab and I scroll down a bit, you can see members like Joey, who shared this screenshot of him making $894 in a single day with his channel. This member named DH was monetized with just
seven videos in 10 days, [music] and then he shared these screenshots. Look at that, 404,000 views, and what seems to be also seven videos. Maho here made channels and then shared the screenshots. I mean, you get the point.
YouTube is [music] in this community and you can always reach out to me. So description of this video and in the pinned comment. Check it out if you want. That takes me to rule number two, which is thumbnail formats. You're
"Okay, if I'm going to make something original, what is a thumbnail going to look like if nobody else is doing it on YouTube?" Well, if you look back at the something interesting, something you you might have not noticed when I showed you
the first time. Look at this thumbnail right here. It has a white rectangle, black text, and a warning label, and a arrow. This channel about cigars, white rectangle, black text, arrow. This YouTube channel about fashion, majority,
red arrow, rectangle, white, black text. Same exact thing if we go into the golf one. You see, your thumbnail is going to be original in its own way because yes, everybody is using the white rectangle with the black text, but this is the
bottles. This is the only channel doing it for cigars. This one's the only one one that is doing it for golf. So, if you could replace the golf club from this thumbnail with anything else you can think of and it looks good, that's
niche. Let me show you what that looks like. This is a software called Vid Ninjas. I'm going to put one of the thumbnails from the Ryan's Golf channel into this and then I'm going to say in the prompt box on the bottom right,
"Replace the golf club in his hand with work boots." And boom, just like that. In 15 seconds, Vid Ninjas created this thumbnail and I could see, "Okay, maybe I do the same thing they're doing, but I only talk about work boots, the best
work boots." Now, what if we do fishing rods? There we go, it created this. Looks good to me. You could start a YouTube channel about fishing rods and fishing equipment, the best ones. Now, let's do uh [ __ ] water bottles. It
I'm going to start a YouTube channel about what big, expensive water bottle companies are scamming you or what are the best ones to drink and why. Sure, there may not be a lot of videos to make about it, but it looks up to par. This
looks like a successful YouTube channel because this is what successful channels look like. One more. Let's do an Nvidia graphics card. Look at that. the best PC parts. There's a huge market for that as well. And it looks good on a
thumbnail, in theory, it should get views. And they're all technically YouTube channel that talks about work boots with this style of packaging? You down with a tool like VinWiki's and replacing the item in his hand until
you're going to be like, "Oh my god, this is genius." You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars per video on a high-quality editor or an AI generator that makes you 2D animations. The best decision I ever made was to walk the
opposite direction everybody else is walking. I'm not saying any of this is how it worked for me. But anyways, moving on to number three, that is AI tools. Right now, as a as a complete beginner, it's a weird time to start.
automation channel. That's because the idea of creating a full YouTube video with all AI visuals is very popular right now. Right, so starting a faceless channel where the entire visuals are AI generated is the worst possible thing
you can do right now. A few months ago, you could have easily monetized a YouTube channel with fully AI generated videos. But in 2026, with all of these new YouTube rules, it's not worth it. It's too risky. It's risky in the sense
that. You reach 4,000 hours of watch time. You reach 1,000 subscribers. The probability of you getting into the YouTube Partner Program is very low. I'm not saying you can't use AI generated images every now and then in
your video. You can. But the whole video, not so much. The worst part is YouTube coaches promoting these type of softwares. If you don't know, they either own the softwares and they're making money off of you signing up or a
company reached out to them, gave them an affiliate link, they said promote long as this person [music] is subscribed. And I know that because every single day, dude, I get hundreds of emails [music] from these AI
companies trying to get me to promote their softwares. No, I've always said on this YouTube channel. [ __ ] them. I Because I know it's risky. Until the day comes where YouTube [music] says, "Hey, you can create fully AI generated
videos, just do this or here are the rules." Then we can do it, right? But as of right now, June of 2026, [ __ ] that. Be very careful with what videos you watch from here on out cuz some of the offers these guys are throwing at at
these YouTubers [music] is pretty crazy. For example, I got one from a very big AI company. Those [ __ ] offered me an affiliate link with 70% >> [laughter] >> I was I almost took it. 70% is crazy,
anything that I wouldn't use myself. Especially something that I know is too looks cool, right? The whole idea that it does it for you is super sick, but that's the same reason as to why it's a problem and as to why YouTube isn't very
clear on what they're going to do with that. And I mean, besides these AI tools that create the visuals for you, a lot of the other [ __ ] is kind of garbage, right? It's kind of more of a luxury. It's not needed. For example, earlier I
not a promo. You know, I I showed you guys how easy it was to create a thumbnail. There's also a little production pipeline here for you to keep competitors tag where you can keep track of your competitors. There's a tool
called Kumo that helps you come up with original ideas based off of a word or a YouTube video link. There's also a tool where it creates a full script for you. And that's all great. I worked really hard on this, right? I made sure it's
use. But do you need it to succeed on YouTube? No, because you can easily You just got to learn Photoshop. You can also easily keep track of your production by using Excel sheets. You can also write scripts with ChatGPT or
Claude with your own prompts. So again, these tools are luxuries. You know, some of them are great and they help you save time, but the majority of them suck. Or it's not really something you need. So, if you want to keep costs low, I'm
you need. First is research. That's video ideas and topics. It it it's good to have one of those. The tool I recommend for this is Velio. To check it description. By the way, that is not an affiliate link, okay? For scripting,
Again, I have my own, but to not be biased, to tell you the truth, just create a good prompt and just use Claude or ChatGPT. For the voice over, use programs out there that create voice overs for you. They're all [ __ ] And for
the editing, you can just hire a freelancer on [music] fiverr.com, upwork.com, or ytjobs.com. Depending on the niche, it's going to cost you about $20 a pop. Or if you're going to do anything news related, I would recommend
thumbnail, it's the same thing. Learn Photoshop or get really good at prompting with Nano Banana or ChatGPT. That's it. Everything else is a luxury. yeah, it's getting really hot in my office, so that's pretty much it. Thanks
office, so that's pretty much it. Thanks for watching.