As I type, the Mark Ellis Reviews YouTube channel has just clocked over to 99,819 subscribers.
I cannot get my head around that number. Mortgage (ugh) aside, it’s the largest number I’ve ever had attached to my name. The thought of that many people feeling compelled enough to click the ‘subscribe’ button is completely overwhelming.
However, the gravity of this milestone is a bit lost on me, to be honest. That’s not because I’m making light of it - and I’m certainly not taking it for granted - it’s just harder to conceptualise than the many milestones that came before it.
The first milestone was the big one. YouTube will only allow you to start earning via their Partner Program when you reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. I hit that target relatively early on, and it was a huge confidence boost (the monetary rewards were, as I suspected, rather minimal at that stage).
YouTube then pretty much leaves you to it. There are no further rewards from the big ‘G’ until you match that subscriber number 100 times over. You, therefore, have to make up your own milestones.
Rather than plan mine, I allowed them to arrive naturally; I wanted to ‘feel’ the milestones that unexpectedly meant the most. They were, in this exact order:
10,000 subscribers
50,000 subscribers
Renting the studio space
Going full-time
90,000 subscribers
The numbers above are as arbitrary as the numbers on which YouTube places the most importance. For instance, ten-thousand subscribers is just one more than 9,999 subscribers. But, to me, it felt huge due in no small part to the fact that it was the moment at which the channel’s committed audience broke into double digits. In a serendipitous moment, it turned out to be my girlfriend’s brother who was the 10,000th subscriber (we’ll let him off the fact he hadn’t subscribed before that stage).
When I hit 50,000 subscribers, I was halfway towards my silver play button; I just needed to do the same again to receive a letter from Susan (now, Neal). It also, inexplicably, felt like a far bigger number than 49,999.
It was around that time that I moved the channel out of the back bedroom and began renting my studio space. Shortly after, I ditched all of the existing contracts for my legacy business and went all-in as a full-time content creator. It was scary, exhilarating, undoubtedly the right thing to do, and easily my biggest milestone to date.
A few weeks back, I hit 90,000 subscribers. That took me by surprise - I didn’t expect to feel quite as overwhelmed by that number as I did. The path to it had been pretty rocky, to be honest, growth throughout 2022 had been all over the place, and tech YouTube itself was - and still is - experiencing a rather fallow period.
Suddenly, I was just 10,000 subscribers away from the biggie. Incidentally, the fact that 10,000 subscribers no longer feels as insurmountable as it once did is a testament to how the weight of these intervals reduces over time for established creators.
By my reckoning, I’ll hit 100K this weekend. I may have a whiskey or two.
Thank you for joining me on this journey so far and making it all possible.