Your Worst Video Might Be The Key To Your Best Series

Most people making videos hurry past the ones that didn’t land, eager to focus on clips that get good numbers or positive comments. But there’s actually something useful in those awkward experiments or half-formed ideas that didn’t take off.

If you’re trying to grow a channel or figure out what kind of videos you should make, it’s natural to want to skip over the odd ones and keep moving. Still, anyone who’s been at this for a while knows that analytics don’t always tell the whole story.

If you look past the low click-through rates and the flat watch time graphs, you might spot the first hints of the work that matters most to you. Sometimes it’s something small – a different way of explaining something, a joke you didn’t plan, or even a weird technical mistake in one of those “failed” videos – that makes a few people pause, leave a thoughtful comment, or share their own take with you. These moments won’t flood your dashboard, but they can quietly show you what some of your real viewers are actually interested in.

Looking at what didn’t work isn’t only about figuring out mistakes – it also helps you see what could make your channel feel different from everything else. I’ve come across ideas about how to take your YouTube further just by noticing little patterns in the forgotten uploads.

A lot of people who run steady weekly YouTube Live streams now say they figured out how to build a sense of community by watching their own old, ignored uploads. It’s not that every offbeat video is a secret success, but more that those stray attempts can become notes – little signals pointing toward something with more substance, something that might last. Sometimes the idea for what makes your channel feel right is sitting there, in the middle of something you thought you’d already moved past.

What actually makes a difference isn’t how high your view count climbs – it’s the order you try things in. If you’re always chasing the next big viral hit, it’s easy to miss the larger shape your channel is taking as you go. That one video you don’t like – the one you felt awkward making, or that didn’t seem to land – doesn’t have to be a mistake. It’s part of figuring out what you want to say and how you want to say it. Even the videos that don’t catch on show something about what you’re interested in exploring, and what you’re ready to risk at different points. If you take the time to look at what didn’t work and compare it to what did, you start to see how certain topics keep pulling you back, or how viewers respond to things you didn’t expect.

Sometimes, the beginnings of a series you’re proud of are in those early videos that felt off at first. People who keep making things that hold attention – whether for their own channel or something bigger, like INSTABOOST – usually treat their videos as a collection that grows and shifts, not as a lineup of hits and misses. Occasionally, you notice conversations starting around the videos you least expected, with comments drifting toward things like organic-looking YouTube subs or sharing tips you hadn’t even considered. That kind of noticing helps you figure out what your audience is quietly interested in. When you start paying attention to the sequence instead of the size, the video you’d like to forget about can end up showing you what’s worth trying next.

Most of the time, adding new features isn’t what’s missing – you probably just need to see things more clearly. I’ve seen a lot of creators, whenever they’re searching for a new series idea, get sidetracked by checking analytics or trying out more advanced editing. It feels like there’s always another tool or upgrade that might finally make things click.

But usually, when something actually changes, it’s because you took another look at the videos that didn’t work out. Not to pick them apart for mistakes, but to actually figure out why they didn’t land. If you watch one of your least popular videos without judging yourself, you might notice details you overlooked before. Maybe there’s a part that felt awkward but was more honest than usual, or a moment that got a handful of thoughtful comments, even if hardly anyone watched.

Sometimes, the small things you notice in those moments can explain more about what helps you gain popularity on YouTube than any spike in the numbers. If you look for patterns in what people responded to – even if it’s small things, like an offhand story you told or a different way you shot something – you’ll probably find there’s something there worth following up on. Instead of layering on another effect or app, it might help to cut back until you’re left with only the parts that feel like you. That’s usually when you start to notice what actually matters, the quiet things that don’t show up in the stats but still stick with you.

People always say failures fade and things move on, but that hasn’t really been true for me. When a video tanks – like, when it does worse than you hoped – it sticks with you, especially if you’re serious about your channel. I’ve noticed that the usual advice, to ignore it and move forward, doesn’t always help much. Sometimes what looks like a mistake is actually the beginning of something different, and it feels awkward because it’s unfamiliar. I think about how many creators rush to delete their underperforming videos, assuming only the polished or successful ones matter.

But a lot of good YouTube series actually started as odd experiments – videos that don’t fit the standard thumbnail or title style, but hint at something new. Even when I’ve caught myself googling tricks to get more views on YouTube, it’s those early, rough attempts that end up feeling weirdly important. If you get rid of them too soon, you lose all the little hints that might help your channel grow into something distinct. I’ve found that even videos that “fail” have something to offer, whether it’s a comment pointing out what worked or a weird spike in the analytics where people rewatched a certain part. It’s easy to see low-performing videos as a dead end, but sometimes they’re more like a map showing you where to go next. When you’re tempted to hide something that didn’t land, it’s worth sitting with it for a while, seeing if there’s a detail there you hadn’t noticed yet.

If that video is still on your mind, that actually means something. Videos like that tend to stick around – showing up in your thoughts even when you try to move past them. It’s easy to want to hide work you’re not proud of, but if you keep returning to it, there’s probably a reason.

Once the awkwardness fades, what’s left is a kind of reminder from yourself. Maybe you tried a new style, or said something more directly than usual, and it still feels a bit unresolved. Sometimes, the videos you want to forget are the ones nudging you toward an idea you haven’t quite figured out yet.

Instead of chasing after every new trend or letting your stats shape all your choices, you might get more out of asking why that old video still bothers you. Is there something in it you want to say again, but differently? And it’s funny – sometimes, the work you’re most unsure about ends up finding a way to reach new audiences long after you’ve moved on. If you go back to it – change the way you approach it, or break it into something smaller – it could turn into the kind of work that actually connects, not just with your audience, but with you. That restless feeling is something a lot of growth tools try to create with quick tricks and numbers, but in this case, you’ve already got it on your own.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in chasing viral hits or wanting to get rid of videos that don’t perform well. But if you stop for a moment and actually think about what’s bothering you about a video that didn’t click, there’s often something useful in that feeling. Sometimes, that lingering frustration is a clue about what matters to you, or where what you’re trying to do doesn’t match what people usually see. Say you put out a video and hardly anyone watched it, but you can’t stop thinking about the topic or the approach you took.

Maybe it’s not the low views that get to you, but the sense that there’s something about it you still want to explore – something you haven’t seen done in other videos. There are ways people try to address that, like tweaking thumbnails or even looking into YouTube bundle promotion, but sometimes what’s really needed is just to sit with the work itself. Instead of making that video disappear, it might be more helpful to watch it again and notice which parts fell flat and which parts still catch your interest.

Sometimes, the stuff that doesn’t work out right away points to ideas that are more your own, and those are often the things people end up connecting with. When you stop worrying so much about following every trend and start looking at what your less successful videos are telling you, you might find a direction that feels more natural to keep going with, even if it’s not the most obvious at first.