The EEE Model: How to Break Out of the Small YouTuber Niche

Hey there.

This post is specifically aimed at YouTube beginners and aims to prevent you from burning out into burnout with your first 500 subscribers due to sheer enthusiasm. But one step at a time.

A common beginner mistake on YouTube is building a channel around a single idea. I deal with this almost weekly:

A young creator, usually between 13-16 years old, watches their favorite YouTubers daily (for example, Gronkh) and one boring day comes up with an idea: “I could also install OBS and make Let’s Plays.” And so they do. In no time, our newcomer not only figures out how to record, edit, and upload videos but is already optimizing individual aspects like SEO or thumbnail design. But once the novelty wears off, disillusionment sets in because no matter what they try, nothing seems to work. Keyword optimization, self-promotion, two videos a day, maybe even three or four—none of them get more than a handful of views. In fact, most new videos seem to perform worse than the old ones!

What happened? To find the solution, you need to take a step back. What exactly are these videos? How are they relevant to target audiences? Who are your target audiences in the first place? And how do your videos stand out from the sea of videos on YouTube? If you’re stuck here and don’t know how to proceed, you could hire us, but before you spend money unnecessarily, I have a better idea: Try following the EEE model. (Or rather, the EDE model. The model is the same, just in English and German.)

Explore — The First E in the EEE Model

It’s generally a good idea to start by exploring what you can do on YouTube. And yes, the original inspiration was probably great—but on YouTube, you can do so much more. Because apart from the well-known genres like gaming, beauty, or vlogs, there are countless niches. For example, lockpicking, physics simulations of multi-link pendulums, or polishing things until they can be used as knives or shine.

In fact, there’s a good chance that for every hobby, there’s an opportunity to make videos about it. Or even dedicate an entire channel to it. These hobbies don’t even have to be activities you pursue for multiple hours every day. Baking cookies just before Christmas would be enough, for instance. And that’s how you can go through life: Observe the world and film it from time to time, whether digitally or in real life, scripted or improvised.

This is the exploration phase of the EDE model.

The time spent in the exploration phase is a period of great freedom and something larger channels lose: For example, Kurzgesagt can’t just upload a vlog, and Jungsfragen can’t suddenly play Minecraft on their channel. Basically, during this exploration, numbers should be irrelevant to you because you know why and for whom you’re making these videos—for yourself. To grow. To learn. And maybe even to have fun.

Over time, you’ll likely find a style and increasingly produce a specific type of content: You’re slowly finding your niche.

Develop — The Second E in the EEE Model

In the second phase of the EEE model, it’s about gradually building an audience. This means defining target audiences, finding formats that stand out from the crowd, optimizing, and so on. If this sounds like the problem mentioned at the beginning, you’re right. We’ve come full circle from where we left off after the exploration round. But with one big difference: You now have knowledge across various genres. You have practice in everything you do. And likely, you have a better understanding of what exactly you can do in your niche.

This is where all the tips from the internet start to make sense. I won’t list every single tip here, but I’ll give you an idea of where to find help:

• You can find our tips in German and in English.
• YouTube has the Creator Academy with various courses.
• YouTube channels like Video Creators, So geht YouTube, Little Monster Media Co., and many others have videos addressing various channel growth questions.
• We offer consulting services and can tell you which channel optimizations are most beneficial in what order.

There are two ways out of the development phase: either into the third phase, where the channel is established, or back into the exploration phase, where you take a fresh look at what exactly it is that you want to do. Going back might initially sound like you’re losing ground. However, this isn’t the case: YouTube is suitable as a hobby in most cases, even deep into the established phase. This means you have two options when it becomes less enjoyable and progress stalls: either continue exactly as before or make changes. And making changes is clearly the better option, even though it might set you back in this model.

Established — The Third E in the EEE Model

Channels in the 3rd phase are functionally similar to those in the 2nd phase. However, they are generally more routine-based, aware of most best practices, and often have some of the largest channels in their niche. This doesn’t mean they have it easier. As an established creator, time usually becomes tight as projects grow larger and more frequent, eventually requiring task distribution among entire teams.

If you’re already an established YouTuber, uh, thanks for reading, I guess. If you feel like YouTube is evolving faster than you can keep up, you can subscribe to our YouTube Patch Rundown. We’ll tell you everything that’s happened on the platform in just 5 minutes every week. Alternatively, you can hire us to prevent tunnel vision or have a more direct support line to YouTube.

Summary

In summary (and to wrap up this post), you can conclude that YouTube is initially a hobby, and you should treat it as such, especially in the beginning. Use the platform to explore and unleash your creativity. It’s possible that you may later be able to develop your channel into a business, with all the advantages and disadvantages that entails. And perhaps one day you’ll be so established that you can count yourself among the YouTube elite.