Platform Lessons from YouTube (Pre-Google)
YouTube's Early Growth and Traffic-Driving Strategies
YouTube is now one of the most popular websites in the world. But in the beginning, it was just a small idea started by three friends. This blog explains how YouTube grew from nothing into a huge success. We will look at the early steps they took, how they got people to use the site, and the smart strategies that helped them grow quickly.
Garvit Sahdev enjoys understanding the ideas that shape our world. The Thoughtful Tangle is an initiative to share this journey and experience with friends who love to do the same. He selects one idea and dives deep into it to understand its basics, relevance, impact, and opportunities around it.
YouTube’s journey started on April 23, 2005. The first video ever uploaded was called “Me at the zoo.” It showed one of the founders, Jawed Karim, talking about elephants at the zoo. This video was only 18 seconds long, but it was the beginning of something big.
After uploading the video, the YouTube team asked their friends and family to visit the site. They also asked them to upload their videos and tell other people about it. At first, YouTube was not just a place to share videos—it had a dating feature. People were encouraged to upload videos to find a date.
To get more women to join, the team even posted ads on Craigslist. They offered to pay $100 to any woman who would upload 10 videos. Sadly, no one took the offer. This showed how hard it was to get people to use the site in the beginning.
When you are building a platform, start from a niche that is most easy to crack. Dating had so much value for men that they were ready to try a new platform for it.
By May, one of the co-founders, Steve Chen, was unhappy with the slow growth. At that time, there were only around 40 to 60 videos on the site. Not many people were using it.
In June, they made some changes to the website. It became easier to find videos and leave comments. Some of the videos that were shared early on included titles like “Kites,” “Ibiza,” “Bikes,” and “Tim Sledding.”
Since there were so few videos, people used strange tags like “sad,” “mallrats,” and “malebear.” This showed how little content there was and how random things felt in the early days.
Platforms make it easy for users to find and consume value. Added features in YouTube helped people to find the right videos.
One of the smartest things YouTube did was to allow videos to be shared on other websites. At that time, MySpace was very popular, and many users started posting YouTube videos on their MySpace pages. This made YouTube videos easy to find.
People could also send video links to each other by email. This helped the site grow faster because more people started watching and sharing videos.
In September 2005, the YouTube website looked much better. The homepage had tabs like Watch Videos, Upload Videos, and Invite Friends. There were also personal sections like MyVideos, MyFavorites, MyFriends, and MyMessages.
YouTube also began to advertise that they had “1,000s of fast streaming videos.” This made the site seem more exciting and full of content.
Platforms give their users choices. YouTube advertised the same.
YouTube added features to keep people on the site longer. One popular feature was “Today’s Featured Videos.” These were videos that were fun, interesting, or getting lots of views.
Each video showed how many times it had been watched, had a place to leave comments, and a 5-star rating system. Later, they added a feature to show recently watched videos, which made it easier for users to find what they liked.
Platforms keep users engaged in their digital/physical space. This generates more transactions per user and increases the overall value of the platform.
People began uploading all kinds of videos. These included funny moments, TV show clips, creative skits, and homemade videos. One very popular video was “Lazy Sunday,” a comedy rap from Saturday Night Live. Another hit was a remix of the Mortal Kombat theme song.
These videos spread quickly and got millions of views. However, YouTube started to face problems with copyright. For example, NBC asked them to remove “Lazy Sunday” because it was from their show.
Even though no single video ruled the site, lots of small videos helped YouTube grow. Family clips, pet videos, funny accidents, and simple homemade content all played a part.
For example, a silly video called “My Cat Stinky” might not seem important, but thousands of videos like it brought people back to the site every day. This is called the “long tail”—a large number of small things can create a big impact.
By August 2005, YouTube had around 300 daily visitors for every million people on the internet. Just three months later, that number jumped to about 1,000.
At first, only a few videos were uploaded each day. But by May 2006, around 30,000 new videos were uploaded every single day! From having only 40–60 videos in May 2005, YouTube had over 100 million videos by mid-2006.
The site reached what is called critical mass between November 2005 and March 2006. This means it became big enough that it kept growing quickly on its own. People saw that others were using YouTube, so they wanted to join, too.
In the beginning, YouTube didn’t focus on making money. They kept the platform free so more people would join. The team believed that if they had lots of users, advertisers would eventually be interested.
They were right—but it took time. Making money through video ads was harder than they thought.
In October 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. This was a huge moment. By then, YouTube had become the most popular video site in the United States. People were spending more time on YouTube than on any other site.
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