Being a YouTuber had always been a dream of mine, a dream that I never thought would light the day.
Not because I did not want it to become alive;
Not because I did not think I had it in me to make it work;
Not because I did not feel the fervent passion raging inside me;
I looked realistically at the numbers and the number of people who try to make it work and the number of people who make it work.
The difference is heartbreaking.
I thought that if I tried and the idea did not work, I wouldn’t lose anything. Instead, I would not have to ponder over the “what ifs”.
So I started my channel to see if it would pay off as a business venture.
The Beginning of YouTube
I started my channel a couple of years ago.
I love food. I love cooking it as much as I love eating and trying out new dishes at new restaurants.
My channel was all about my love for food.
My first video was a cooking trial of one of my mother’s favourite recipes. I loved the experience. Being in front of the camera was as thrilling as it is now.
My video got 227 views in two days. I was especially proud of myself because I did not know that many people.
After the cooking video, I thought of delving into reviews. My partner and I used to go to new restaurants and try out their dishes and vlog the entire experience in 10 minutes.
From the menu to the last succulent bite of the dish, everything was recorded.
However, getting permission to take the camera inside was a bit of a task, and many a time, I lost the battle.
A year and a half into YouTube, I felt like a change was required.
The Saturation Point
Have you ever felt like you have been doing the same for far too long?
It’s like after you have dissolved as much sugar as you possibly can in a glass of water, its saturation point has come so that no more sugar can be added.
I felt the same way.
I had been reviewing restaurants, food trucks, and street food vendors in London for close to 19 months. Now there wasn’t much left to explore.
I felt that my channel needed something else to bring in new followers. At that time, I had about 107,000 subscribers, which was a significant milestone for me.
But I needed to go ahead and do something that would be liked by my existing subscribers and bring in new ones.
So, I thought of taking my review game on the road, and take my explorations outside London.
The Saviour
Moving beyond London would have two significant advantages;
One was that I would be able to break through the creative funk I was in;
And second, I could manage to relate my content to more people than just from London.
For the same, I needed to travel and travelling was a big problem.
I thought of taking the taxi, but that would be far too expensive for my liking.
Then I thought of travelling by train, but that would constrain me from experiencing the real journey on the road.
With that, I landed on a masterplan. I thought of buying a car and making a vlog out of my journey to get to the tasting.
I knew this idea was a stroke of genius.
And getting a car was easy for me. I had enough of an income that I could easily take out the monthly repayments.
I found an online lender applied for 100% guaranteed car finance, and as the name says, my loan was approved. To my utter surprise, I received the approval within a couple of hours of my application. I did not know we could get loans this fast.
By the next week, I had bought a brand new Volkswagen Golf and was making my first trip to Liverpool and try out the Indigo Greens restaurant, a vegan lace with a 5-star rating on Google.
All because of a loan that helped me get to my desired goal, without a glitch.
The Illuminating Future
The Liverpool video had been my most viewed upload so far. That made me realise that I had done the right thing.
I genuinely feel like being a travel blogger, who also samples mouthwatering delicacies en route to the final destination, was my calling.
I love every moment that I vlog, and when I feel that I have explored every inch of the UK, I will take my explorations to France, a country famous for its food, especially the decadent desserts.
Now I have only one goal, to reach the million marks on my subscribers count and get the coveted YouTube Play Button.