This week, I made it to the 1K subscriber on Youtube.
Thank you all for your support, and grateful for you to have made this milestone possible.
If you’d told me a year ago that I’d hit 1000 YouTube subscribers in a years’ time last year, I probably would’ve laughed it off. I had only been achieving an average of a few subscribers per month, and my best video probably had just 3k views after a year. Also, according to TubeBuddy statistics, it takes an average of 152 videos to reach that milestone. In fact, I even made a short talking about challenging myself to post 1 video every day to reach 152 videos so that I’ll get to 1k subscribers earlier in my youtube journey.
p/s: If you are looking that video in my Youtube channel, I have actually unlisted that video as my goal to make a video daily failed terribly. Not in my Youtube Feed, no one knows my FAILURE 😝. LOL.
I failed to post daily for 152 days. It was hard. Because of the topic I was doing, and a lack of motivation. I was posting about selling courses on Udemy and Gumroad, and the tools to do so (Zoom, Canva, etc.), and there was just these steps I use to post the courses, I just use the regular tools. After some time, I ran out of things to talk about, and I felt that anything further I talk about would be crap. I was bored. There was also close to no views, which at some point was demotivating. And I stopped posting.
After that, I just posted a video once in a while. I looked back at my past videos, it was a few videos every 6 months, when I had a burst of energy for youtube.
Things started to shift in July last year when I bought a second-hand piano. I wanted to make playing the piano a regular habit, and decided maybe I can film myself playing and see my progress over time. So one random day, I filmed myself trying to learn the latest ABRSM Grade 8 pieces in an hour. I posted it without much thought. And what was more important to me was, I enjoyed the process of challenging myself to do something within a “short” time-frame. I didn’t think much about it, though I went on looking at finding other repertoires to play on this piano. However, something unexpected happened. When I checked my Youtube analytics a few days later, that video crossed 500 views within a few days — It was a big deal for me, as I am used to seeing no views- 20+ views after a few days.
I went on to make a video more consistently on playing the piano. They did better than my previous videos on business. And more importantly, I made playing the piano a habit. I started to think that even if this Youtube channel doesn’t become successful, it is a successful documentation of my thoughts and challenges. If there is something I learnt I like, it is challenging myself to do something within a short time frame.
This channel, will be like a video diary of my thoughts and activities. And that was my mindset I had for the channel then on.
On another random day, I made a video titled something “RETIRED Engineer’s Net Worth at Age 40 in Singapore”. Again, another total deviation from the theme of my other videos. This video was inspired by most people’s thought of me without a job after a few years. My family and friends thought I was financially drowning. What I dress in — worn- out and faded T-shirts most of the time, and my request to eat at not “atas” places when we meet (because I can’t understand why we need to spend so much on food when I know where I get similar for way lower prices), often help to paint another picture of my financial position, and many just felt that life without a job is terrible. Most advice me to quick go get a job, don’t be choosy, just get one, etc. While I will not disclose how much I have to people who actually know me, I don’t want people to have live on the misconception in life that the only was to afford things is to keep working. There are alternative paths … I thought I would share it to whoever watch it… And that was what inspired this video.
The video had almost no views for the first few days — if you look at the chart below, it’s close to 0 for the first few days. Then suddenly, it took off. It’s my only video to date that crossed 10K views, and contributed to 50% of my subscribers.
There after I just managed a few hundred views typically per video, and a few subscribers each month. And eventually, I reached 1K subscribers and 4K watch hours.
To be honest, I have no idea what topic I will be making in my channel. If there is anything that I learn about myself from this youtube channel was:
- I Enjoy Challenging Myself to Something
- Results Motivate me
And probably, going forward, these will be the things that will guide my upcoming video ideas. If you are interested, check out my channel here.
Thank you for being part of my journey, I am truly grateful to have you around!