0-10K Subscribers – chatwithKC YouTube Journey

We hit 10,000 subscribers on our chatwithKC youtube channel last month. There are a few things I firmly believe in. Language, Culture, Business and more. In order for one’s voice to be heard, you need an audience. I was looking to do something outside of work and was trying to experiment with a few things. I thought, why not experiment with a youtube channel? This is how the thought process started. I was vulnerable and ok to be laughed at. 

Getting Started: I did not know where to start and was looking at other channels for inspiration. I thought the easiest way to get started was self record with my iPhone camera. It was not hard. I think one of the first videos I did was the idea of 234 world class libraries in the State of Tamil Nadu. This is a practical problem I experienced, where I have to drive long distances to get to a quality library. I was happy with the outcome. I picked on other topics I cared about and started making videos every week. 

Initial Struggles: The key thing with running a youtube channel or anything that you do is to be consistent. Though I was recording videos on a consistent basis (I used to stack 2-3 videos together), we had challenges in publishing the same as we had a hard time finding good video editors and someone stable to help us. There were editing challenges. I also had to spend quite a bit of time reviewing the videos before it got published. 

Monetization: After 3-4 months, we were able to narrow down on the editor and it looked like the editing schedule was managed well. However the channel did not get the growth it needed. I also wanted to ensure that the channel is monetized. We met the subscribers needed easily, however the initial videos were not having the watch hours. I was also not making videos based on the trending topic (because I had other work to do and this is not my full-time job). We tried to get some external help or consulting. 

If you are interested in learning more about this experience, you can also watch this video.

Why not try travel videos? One of the consultants we spoke to suggested that we should try Travel videos and this is a good way to get traction. As I travel quite a bit, I thought it would not be hard to do this. One thing I did not take note at that time is, there were thousands of travel videos. Anyways, it was not hard for me to do this. I started shooting travel videos. In order for us to get the required growth, I was willing to be aggressive and even publish one video every day. The reasoning behind this was there were other youtubers producing videos on a daily basis and it helped them with their growth. I tried this for a few weeks. However it was hard for me. I could not cope up with it. Also, when I was traveling with my family – instead of spending time on my family trip, it felt like I was more focussed on shooting videos for my youtube channel. This is something I did not enjoy and decided to pause this. 

Editing Magic: One of my big learnings during  this journey was that a great editor could create a lot of magic on videos even if you do a poor job on the video. The editor can hide your mistakes. We were traveling to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and my wife shot a video of Rumali Roti being made. I was interacting with the person making the Roti. We just took 20 minutes to record and I was not even sure if I wanted to post it. However the editor who worked on it (Gowtham Kumar) did an amazing job and there was quite a lot I learnt from the experience. 

Podcast: We were still not getting the watch hours required for monetization. However we had editors identified. At this point, I decided to experiment with the podcast route. Why not run a good Tamil podcast and learn from people and share the learnings. This worked. It helped that I also spent time preparing for the podcast. It helped with my learning as well. We were struggling for almost a year or so to hit the watch hours and monetize. However in 1 or 2 videos, we hit thousands of watch hours. This was a BIG learning experience. I understood well that the quality of content you produce is the key. Once we had a few guests in, it was easier to get others onboard. 

10,000 Subscribers: The channel started growing and we hit 10,000 subscribers. This is the first milestone. Our channel is also getting monetized now. Though we do not earn a lot of money, this is a good start. It took us a year and half to get to this point. To some, this might seem like a long time. However I am happy with this progress because we never ran any paid ads and each subscriber or watch hour is organically grown. This is something that excites us. This is just a start. We plan to use this channel well for mutual growth. We need your support. This is not a one person gig. I would like to thank the chatwithKC team behind this effort including Srija Santhanam, Community Manager at DCKAP, Arun Prabhakar and Sanakra Vinayagam (who assisted us with research) from N.I.T Trichy and the video editing team who works behind this. We would like to thank each and every one of our subscribers for your constant support and encouragement. It means a lot to us.

This is Team Work. Come join the chatwithKC Community.