Aprilynne Alter‘s workshop on YouTube intros packed the room beyond capacity at the Friday session at VidCon 2025. The moment also marked the culmination of her four-year journey from Wall Street professional to YouTube educator.

“It went so much better than I thought it would go,” Aprilynne says. “Every single seat was filled, standing room only. Jacque [the programming director] came to check on me halfway through, and he couldn’t even get through the door because of all the people standing there.”

For Aprilynne, speaking at VidCon had been on her vision board for four years. Her approach to YouTube education centers on research-backed frameworks delivered through practical application rather than theory alone. “I think at the beginning I leaned into ‘Hey, I don’t have it figured out yet, but these are the things I’ve learned for myself to make the learning curve a little bit easier,'” she explains. “It took me a year to learn this thing. Can I help you learn it in like 20 minutes instead?”

From Last-Minute Preparation to Interactive Success

Despite knowing about her VidCon engagement since November, Aprilynne’s preparation came down to the wire. “Morning on the day before my talk, I had the full outline with zero slides made,” she confesses. “Stayed up until midnight with my producer making slides. Woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning. Continued making slides. Finished slides two hours before my talk.”

Rather than delivering a standard presentation, she created an interactive workshop where attendees helped construct a YouTube intro in real-time. “The first 75% is teaching my four-step system for making intros and breaking it down with examples. And then the last 25% is, ‘Hey, now we’re going to write an intro all together,'” she explains. “Line by line, I take suggestions from the audience as we apply the four-step system.”

The risk paid off. “The entire time, everyone was so engaged. It just felt so cool to know they had it, they had learned it, and they were able to apply it. And all of that happened within just a 45-minute session.”

Aprilynne at VidCon 2025

A Winding Path to YouTube Education

Aprilynne’s journey began in 2021, when she left her career on Wall Street. “I quit my Wall Street job and gave myself one year to try to do things on my own before I would return to the workforce,” she recalls. Rather than focusing exclusively on a startup, she decided to diversify. “Instead of putting all of my eggs in one basket, I had decided to put multiple eggs in multiple baskets. And one of those baskets was YouTube.”

Initially, she had limited interest in YouTube. “To me, YouTube was like, ‘You’re either MrBeast or Emma Chamberlain, or you use YouTube to check out how to change a tire,'” she explains. Her perspective shifted when a startup friend shared a podcast featuring educational creator Ali Abdal.

“I was like, ‘Wait, you can teach on YouTube? That’s crazy,'” she remembers. “I always viewed myself as an educator at heart.”

Aprilynne launched her first channel in July 2021 and experienced some success, but eventually hit a wall. “I got locked into a niche that I wasn’t passionate about. Burnt out really badly,” she shares. This wasn’t ordinary fatigue—it was physically debilitating. “That was a physical burnout that took me out to the point where I couldn’t even get up out of bed. It was truly a ‘body-shutdown’ type of burnout.”

The experience taught her a crucial lesson: “My main takeaway was it’s not just about doing the activities you think you would like, but that sense of full alignment in every part of your process. You have to be talking about content that you fully believe in and love.”

After stepping away and refocusing on startup projects, Aprilynne realized how much she missed creating videos. Her solution was to find a topic she “could talk about forever and never get tired of” — talking about YouTube itself.

Research-Driven YouTube Education

What makes Aprilynne’s content compelling is her commitment to thorough research. “I really love research,” she says. “I would have a topic like YouTube intros, and be like, ‘How do people make YouTube intros? And what are all the best creators doing?’ And then I would take literally up to hundreds of pages of research for a specific topic.”

Her process extends beyond studying successful YouTubers to examining principles from established industries. “I got really excited about looking at industries outside of YouTube that have been here longer. When it comes to titles, can we examine 1970s news copywriting to see how headlines were written and why they were written in that style? And then how can we apply that to YouTube?”

At VidCon, she shared insights on crafting YouTube intros that prevent audience drop-off in the crucial first 30 seconds:

“In the first five seconds, if there’s too much of a difference between what your title and thumbnail promise versus what the first five seconds of your video are, people are going to get confused,” she explains. Videos must immediately meet two promises: the “plot promise” (what the video is about) and the “format promise” (what type of video it is).

She recommends establishing a Unique Service Proposition (USP) early in the video. “Nowadays, on YouTube, there is more content than ever, to the point where many videos have become commoditized. What can you do to show viewers that this is the video worth watching?”

She suggests highlighting domain expertise, signaling effort (such as time or money invested in creating the content), or providing proof that establishes credibility. Additionally, she recommends keeping intros to 40 seconds or less, adding only enough context “to make viewers care.”

Building Community Through Creator Crew

The success of Aprilynne’s VidCon session highlighted a central aspect of her approach: the power of community and direct interaction.

“Every single time I get to meet a viewer in person, it’s just the coolest freaking thing in the world,” she says. “Hearing that they’ve been watching my videos and the impact it’s had, that drives pretty much everything that I do.”

This community-focused approach guided the launch of her current channel in April 2023. Rather than positioning herself as an all-knowing expert, Aprilynne approaches her content as a fellow learner. “I never wanted to position myself as an expert,” she explains. “All I can share is what I’ve learned so far.”

This genuine approach has grown into Creator Crew, her six-month YouTube coaching program. “It’s an intensive focus on intermediate creators who have been making videos for quite some time, who already have a lot of knowledge but just need help applying that knowledge,” she notes.

With 29 participants in the first cohort, the program emphasizes practical action over theoretical concepts. “The community is open, people are talking with each other, which feels so cool because up until this point it’s been like 30 one-on-one conversations.”

VidCon Reflections and YouTube Trends

Beyond her own session, Aprilynne observed notable changes in VidCon’s structure. “It was a weird VidCon in a variety of ways,” she notes. Compared to previous years, the 2025 event lacked the centralized social hub that had facilitated natural networking.

“Last year, the go-to place was the lobby of the Hyatt. It felt very easy to say, ‘I’ve seen everybody that I wanted to see because at some point they’ve all passed through the lobby.'” The 2025 event felt “much less centralized,” making it difficult to connect with friends and colleagues.

Despite these changes, Aprilynne still sees tremendous value in events like VidCon for creators. “Finding other creators who take YouTube just as seriously as you do is key in terms of getting to that next level. Because we all know it can be incredibly lonely if you don’t know anyone else who’s doing it.”

While at VidCon, Aprilynne discussed current YouTube trends. She observed that “Ultra-long videos were more of a hot trend at the beginning of the year, less so now.” One concerning trend she identified was the rise of AI tools designed to replicate successful thumbnails.

“There have been numerous AI tools that have emerged since the beginning of the year, which claim to recreate viral thumbnails,” she explains. “They take thumbnails that other people have made that have done well and put your face on it.”

The problem is that “many people are using those to make gorgeous, high-quality looking thumbnails that do not match the production value of the inside of the video.” Her conclusion is straightforward: “Polished does not equal better if they don’t match what’s on the inside.”

What’s Next for Aprilynne?

Fresh from her VidCon panel, Aprilynne has two clear priorities: nurturing her Creator Crew community and maintaining the quality of her YouTube content.

“My main priorities throughout the rest of the year are, one, Creator Crew and making sure that I can deliver the best experience to the crewmates,” she explains. Since this is the first cohort, she’s focused on evaluation and refinement.

Her second priority is “staying up to date with my main channel content, and how do I make sure that I’m consistently delivering the same quality of uploads even with Creator Crew going on?”

Reflecting on her journey from Wall Street to VidCon speaker, Aprilynne emphasizes that what truly drives her isn’t metrics but real-world impact. “What is the impact that is coming from these things? That’s what I’m thinking about all the time,” she explains. “Far more than likes, subscribes, and views.”

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