I recorded my first batch of videos and launched my YouTube, TikTok and Instagram profiles with just $1 and ~12 hours of work. Here’s how I did it.
Who am I?
First, let me introduce myself.
My name is Adil Hussain and I’m a Data Scientist and Islamic Finance content writer on a mission to improve financial literacy among Muslims.
Since 2021, I have produced educational content including articles, scripts and snippets for some of the leading Islamic Fintechs and on my personal social media (mainly Twitter and LinkedIn) reaching tens of thousands of Muslims.
After years of making written content, I’ve decided to try my hand at producing videos to:
- Reach the Muslims who only consume video content
- Exercise my creative juices and experiment with a new content form
Defeating my anxieties
After years of imposter syndrome, worrying about what others would think and being self-conscious of my voice, it all changed one morning when I woke up and decided to just record a video.
The week before I had created an in-depth Twitter thread on whether pensions were halal and whether they were a good investment (I’ll be converting this into an article that will be posted here soon iA). This was ready-made content that could easily be transformed into a video.
So that morning, I got in front of the camera and just spoke continuously for around 12 minutes on the same subject. To my surprise, when I watched it back, it was not bad!
Sure, I looked like a mess (as I had just woken up), the camera angle was awful, I was reading off a phone and the audio was bad with lots of background, but it was actually alright!
Just like that, all the anxieties I had about making videos seemed to vanish and it became a very real possibility. I decided to tweet about this and alhamdullilah I got some words of encouragement.
Filming my first video
Now at this point, I had the encouragement I needed to make a start. However it was Monday, and I had a long week of work ahead of me so filming would have to wait till Saturday.
During the week I met up with a friend and confided one of my remaining anxieties, my voice. I’ll be honest, my voice isn’t the clearest.
He reminded me of a story in the Quran in Chapter Taha where Prophet Musa (Moses) peace be upon him first encountered Allah SWT (God). Allah SWT commanded Prophet Musa to speak to Firaun (one of the most oppressive leaders in history). However, Prophet Musa had a speech impediment which led him to make this beautiful dua (prayer):
“My Lord! Uplift my heart for me, and make my task easy, and remove the impediment from my tongue so people may understand my speech.”
This was the last piece of the puzzle for me. I told myself that I was going to memorise this dua and read it whenever I recorded.
How I did it
Now, whilst I waited for the weekend to record, I wanted to learn more about how to get started on YouTube, so naturally I turned to YouTube to learn how to do it.
I’m subscribed to Ali Abdaal’s newsletter and he regularly shares advice on how to get started on YouTube. He has a ‘Part-Time YouTuber Foundations’ course that promises to ‘Kickstart Your YouTube Channel in Under 4 Hours’ for just $1 where they even promise to refund the fee once you’ve recorded your first video.
At that price, it was a steal so I bought it and watched select videos on how to record your first video, set up your YouTube channel and create a thumbnail. I kept this bare bones as my aim was to create a video good enough to publish instead of chasing the perfect video.
Armed with this knowledge, I practised my scripts on Friday evening and by Saturday I was ready to film.
I propped up my Samsung S20 (sorry Apple fanboys) against my humidifier on my standing desk which I set at its highest position. I positioned the camera against the only plain backdrop in my room and began filming.
Filming was easy as my goal was to avoid perfection and just film something that was “good enough”. This is the biggest reason I was able to upload so quickly.
The quest for perfection is one of the major causes of procrastination and by reducing my barrier to film, I made the entire process as easy as it could be.
Creating my channel
Taking advice from Ali, I created a new email for my YouTube channel and this is where I started to get bogged down about the minor details.
What should I name my channel?
What YouTube banner should I create?
Throughout the entire process, the most time I wasted was deciding on what to name my channel. I quickly came to my senses and just went with a name that was good enough.
I used Canva to create my YouTube banner and I also used it to create my first thumbnail.
While recording, I completely forgot I needed a thumbnail so I had to set everything up again the next to take some photos for the thumbnail. This wasn’t as bad or cringe as I thought it’d be. I guess I’ve just gotten used to seeing thumbnails having watched a lot of YouTube content over the last decade.
Now that was it. All that remained was to upload.
This was where the menacing ‘what would people think?’ thought popped back in. Should I tell you something though?
When the videos went live, no one cared. I also decided to crosspost on to Instagram and TikTok, both platforms where video content is king.
Now, I have overcome the mental hurdle of filming and publishing alhamdullillah. The next step is to be consistent (one video a week for a year) and incrementally level up the content in sha Allah.
To do that, I’ll need your support. Please head over and subscribe to the channel. Whilst you’re there share your feedback and let me know what other videos you want from me.
Adil Hussain 
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