Try to stick to a schedule. That's something I've personally struggled with a lot, and it's something that the more successful channels I follow have usually done better with. People like to know when new uploads will be posted, and YouTube likes to push videos that people check out quickly after their initial airing.
Because of that, it's probably best not to try and post daily (or multiple times a day) unless you can truly handle it. There's definitely a path to quicker growth if you have a new video going up day in and day out, but that's also often a recipe for burnout in the long run, and the breaks you take to avoid/fix said burnout will be far more damaging than posting once or twice a week would.
Think carefully about the niche you choose to focus on. It should ideally be both something you can get a decent amount of regular content posted about, and something you won't get bored of/burnt out on too quickly. Nothing on YouTube is more difficult than changing your audience when your channel is already established, and I've seen a lot of people's channels crash and burn because of it.
Don't go overboard on shorts unless you want to become a short focused channel. The people who watch those often don't have much patience for longer videos, and probably won't watch your normal content as a result. Focusing too much on these is a good way to get a ton of subs that don't actually care about your work, and to make YouTube think your audience isn't interested in what you're posting.
That's my advice anywhere. As for what my own journey was like?
Honestly, a bit of a mess. On the one hand, my channel has about 33K subscribers right now, and I've had a fair few videos hit the 100K or even 1 million views mark.
On the other hand, I feel I killed a lot of my momentum at various points by not being able to stick to a regular schedule (due to burnout, job and real life needs, etc), and my attempts to try and diversify my content generally haven't done all that well, likely in large part due to focusing too much on a topic where my long term interest was limited.
Changing can work. If you scroll back to the start of a lot of popular providers and you'll find the originally produced very different stuff.
Even established channels can change. Eg JillBearup[1] used to post videos about science fiction, fantasy, movies. About 8 years in she started a new hobby and posted a few videos about stage fighting that were popular and then pivoted to costumes and fighting in movies. Roughly 10x jump in views per video.
or Scott Manley, who 5+ years ago was making videos about the video game Kerbal Space Program, and now makes space news videos that typically have 150,000 or more views.
Yes I've made some money, though it's not exactly a ton (a few hundred quid every few weeks).
Unfortunately, I kinda screwed up a few times, and forgot to monetise popular videos until way later than I should have. Like that video with 6 million views or so? Wasn't monetised until it got about half of that, which was probably a very stupid mistake.
As for whether it's lucrative in general? Eh it depends on the niche, but generally not if we're talking ads. You need hundreds of thousands of views per video to really do well from those alone, and even that is heavily dependent on the subject matter in question and the audience you've drawn in (their country, demographics, etc). Most of the folks I know who do YouTube stuff full time tend to make a decent chunk of their money from Patreon and sponsorships instead, and I know at least one creator who stopped making stuff altogether due to it not covering their living costs (in a fairly cheap, rural part of China mind you).
I do post shorts, and some of them have done pretty well. However, the number of views needed to make serious money with those is insane even compared to normal videos, and it's a completely different audience to the rest of the site. Additionally, given you can't add custom thumbnails for them and the way the algorithm works there is wildly inconsistent (seen some people get like, a hundred views from one short and a hundred thousand from the next one), it's a very risky game to put too much work into.
Because of that, it's probably best not to try and post daily (or multiple times a day) unless you can truly handle it. There's definitely a path to quicker growth if you have a new video going up day in and day out, but that's also often a recipe for burnout in the long run, and the breaks you take to avoid/fix said burnout will be far more damaging than posting once or twice a week would.
Think carefully about the niche you choose to focus on. It should ideally be both something you can get a decent amount of regular content posted about, and something you won't get bored of/burnt out on too quickly. Nothing on YouTube is more difficult than changing your audience when your channel is already established, and I've seen a lot of people's channels crash and burn because of it.
Don't go overboard on shorts unless you want to become a short focused channel. The people who watch those often don't have much patience for longer videos, and probably won't watch your normal content as a result. Focusing too much on these is a good way to get a ton of subs that don't actually care about your work, and to make YouTube think your audience isn't interested in what you're posting.
That's my advice anywhere. As for what my own journey was like?
Honestly, a bit of a mess. On the one hand, my channel has about 33K subscribers right now, and I've had a fair few videos hit the 100K or even 1 million views mark.
On the other hand, I feel I killed a lot of my momentum at various points by not being able to stick to a regular schedule (due to burnout, job and real life needs, etc), and my attempts to try and diversify my content generally haven't done all that well, likely in large part due to focusing too much on a topic where my long term interest was limited.