I Built a Content Empire of Over a Billion Views — and Deleted It
I built a content empire of over a billion views online, deleted all of it last year, and I finally understand content creation. The simple thing that I hope every content creator can get is this: just focus on helping people. It's so tempting to focus on getting views for yourself, getting money for yourself, getting famous, and controlling and influencing the world. I know — I got into all of that. But what I can tell you is it will never be enough.
I've had just about everything you would dream of happening online. I was a top 10 Udemy instructor and made millions and millions of dollars. I was a top 20 Facebook gaming partner, with millions and millions of people watching me dominate at Call of Duty Warzone, laugh, and play retro games. I was one of the first crypto YouTubers in the world, and I moved markets — I'd make a single video and it moved huge markets off of one video I made. I've had all kinds of people recognize me in person. I've been invited to speak in places full of raving fans. I've made the money. I supported my family for years, making six-plus figures a year working from home. And I deleted all of it last year because it just never felt like it was enough.
Almost everybody teaching you today is teaching you from that same place. They're teaching you to try to do anything to get the money, to get the views, to get the power. And what I can tell you is that's not going to work out well.
Here's how long I've been in this: I taught some of the people teaching you YouTube today — some of the people you might follow — how to get started. I had the top Facebook marketing course on Udemy in 2015, and one of the top YouTube courses on Udemy in 2015. I had more subscribers than Mr. Beast in 2015 and 2016. He got ahead of me quite a bit after that, and when I watch his videos sometimes, I feel like I should just quit creating content — like after all this time, I should be at his level. I started creating content at the same time he did, if not before.
Where I Went Wrong: My Views, My Money, My Influence
Here's the thing: where I most went wrong creating content was focusing on my views, my money, my influence. A lot of us content creators are disillusioned. We're dishonest with ourselves. We say on the surface that everything we're doing is to help people — it's always to help people, to entertain people. But how much time are you spending in your analytics? How do you feel about what you're creating if you're not getting the money or the views you think you should get?
What I saw when I deleted everything online last year is that it reminded me: I didn't get into creating videos on YouTube in 2011 just to make money. I got into it because I loved it. And I found that even when I deleted everything on YouTube, I still ended up writing books, because I just have so much content coming out of me all the time to share that I've got to share it. Since coming back, I created six new YouTube channels and cranked all this stuff out. I have 35 books — I published 10 books in nine months while I wasn't on YouTube — because I just want to share, and I want to help people have better lives. That's why I got into content creation.
In My Experience, Courses Are Dead — People Want to Talk to a Human
Now yes, if you want to be able to do content creation full time, you do need to make an income. And to me, the best way to make an income with content creation is to offer one-on-one calls, because in my opinion courses are dead. Anyone telling you to sell an online course in 2026 is way behind the game. I was telling people to sell online courses in 2014 — that was 12 years ago. If you're selling online courses today, whoever's teaching you hardly knows anything themselves. Even selling communities today — that's kind of a newer thing, like Skool communities — but to me, in the age of AI and instant answers, courses and even communities are going down. What you really need is to be able to talk to a human. Think about how precious it is to actually talk to a human about something.
And yes, you do need to monetize. So I think the best way is to sell one-on-one calls, because you can instantly start monetizing with them. This Jerry Banfield YouTube coach channel is at least the second channel I've made about helping people with YouTube. I had videos with hundreds of thousands of views back in the day — like 10 years ago — on how to do YouTube. In fact, some of the big YouTubers you watch now watched my videos on how to get started on YouTube, and some of them, when they saw me starting up new channels, said, "Hey, nice to see you — look at this channel I've got now." So I'm a great person to have a call with, because I understand this from the inside and I've been doing it longer than most people. Many of the people teaching YouTube today are like me 10 years ago — they're teaching you basic strategies.
Set Up for Long-Term Success, Not Guru Games
But here's the thing: you need to be set up for long-term success. What I've noticed is that if you're setting up to help people and have fun, you'll be set up for long-term success. What most people are teaching you is all about getting views and money for yourself, and their authority is the apparent views and apparent money they're getting. It's actually pretty easy to trick people about views and money. You can use things like ads — there are other things you can do too — and just make it look like you're getting all these views. Did you realize you could go into YouTube ads and pay roughly $1 for 1,000 views? You probably didn't know that, did you? Well, keep that in mind next time you see some of these videos. I don't even advertise my videos, because I'd rather just have the organic traffic that I'm going to get for free. I'd rather not spam my videos out to everybody — I feel there are people worthy of what I have to say, and my videos will find those right people. And in my experience, running ads can garbage up the algorithm.
From what I can see, a lot of the people in the YouTube coaching community only care about making money for themselves. The information they give out will not work for you over the long term. In the short term, most of them are telling you to be an authority, to try to sell people on the idea that you're an expert, and to niche, niche, niche. But I promise you, in my experience, you will burn out doing that in the long term.
How do I know? I've done that. I've been the crypto guy — the crypto guy who printed money and then deleted everything. In fact, I was heavy into crypto in 2025 right when I deleted everything, because it felt like the only content worth making for me was crypto content — it was the only content I was making that was making money. And I lost the joy in making other content just for fun. What I'm grateful to see is that deleting everything taught me this: if something is a passion, you do it and you're happy to do it for free. You do it for free, you do it as much as you possibly can, and you do it whether you get views or not. You do it because it's in your heart to share, and you share everything to make somebody's life better.
What's shocking is that there are a lot of things you can do in content creation that will make you money but will sabotage your ability to truly help people. I can't stand most of the so-called YouTube gurus. From what I've seen, they do nothing but put out junk information and sell you on programs you do not need.
The Whole Strategy: Share a Heartfelt Video Every Day
It's really simple. Just share a heartfelt video every day. That's all you need to do. Share a video every day, or go live every day. If you have one YouTube channel, you can go live on it 30 minutes a day. If, like me, you have six YouTube channels, going live on six channels a day is a bit much — but it's pretty easy for me to put out six videos a day and just crank out videos to try to help people over and over again.
And then yes, you do need one way to make money, and it's easy to set up paid calls — super easy. My new thing is putting them directly on a thumbnail. Because I don't want somebody's program. I don't want somebody's course. I don't want somebody's community. What I want is to talk to somebody. I've been looking for where I can schedule a call with a fellow YouTuber who actually knows enough that I could bounce my experience off their experience and we could help each other — and I haven't found one yet. They're all selling programs. And please, don't put yourself in somebody's program. I've talked to so many people who've taken so many programs, and they don't work. Even when they work, you could have done it by yourself without their program for free — and you'd probably have set up a system that's better for you, instead of following somebody else's exact blueprint. For content creation, exact blueprints usually don't work very well, because what works exactly for me won't fit you — you are a different person and you need to tweak it. That's why I believe customized one-on-one help is the most effective form of help, and that's why that's all I offer now.
Get Clear About Why You're Doing This
So for those of you creating content, watching video after video that says the same basic thing, I hope you'll hear this: you need to get clear about why you're doing this. And the why should be because you love doing it and you want to help other people. Helping other people means that if there's a conflict — if doing something one way makes you more money and doing it a different way makes you less — you choose the less-money option. That's what I do. If I just wanted to maximize my money, the content I create would be vastly different. In crypto, if I just wanted to maximize my money, I would need to be dishonest — though that doesn't seem to stop a lot of other creators.
If I wanted to just make a million dollars a month in crypto, I know exactly how I'd do it. It would cause a lot of other people to lose money, but I'd be making a million dollars a month. So I choose not to do that. I choose instead to give people the best information I possibly can, completely for free, in every single one of my videos. That's why I don't sell a course, even though I've made millions of dollars selling online courses — I don't believe in selling courses anymore. Put your best videos up for free on YouTube. Never send people outside of YouTube for your content — unless it's a censorship issue. I am building something like Jerry Banfield Uncensored for that, because yes, you do have to comply with the YouTube community guidelines, and I respect that.
I hope that if you want some real help on YouTube — instead of these BS programs, empty promises, and clickbait titles and thumbnails — I invite you to come talk to me. I'll give you a real approach. You can also see the free help I share in my YouTube Coaching playlist. I've helped a lot of people build huge businesses online over the years. I've got deeper experience than almost anybody else you're going to talk to, and I'm a very, very good person. I'm available and ready for you.