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My YouTube Journey: How Starting a Channel Changed My Life

About a year ago, I embarked on a new chapter by launching a YouTube channel focused on marketing and branding. As I write this, I’m sitting at 402 subscribers—enough to fill a theater, which feels like a lot, yet sometimes it’s like shouting into the void. There have been moments when I wanted to give up, but I’m so glad I didn’t. Starting this channel has genuinely transformed my life, and I believe it can do the same for you. Let me take you back to the beginning to share how this journey unfolded.

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From Zero Waste to a New Vision

My name is Marta, and before this channel, I ran a successful personal brand called Bautga Zero Waste, where I shared zero-waste lifestyle tips and beauty tutorials, primarily on Instagram, with a YouTube channel on the side. In just one year, I built a community of hundreds of thousands across social media, scaled my business to six figures, and grew my first YouTube channel to over 30,000 subscribers. The growth was exhilarating, but everything changed in 2022 when I became a mom.

Motherhood shifted my perspective. The beauty and lifestyle content I was creating no longer felt authentic. I found myself drawn to marketing and branding—topics that truly lit me up. In 2023, I made the bold decision to walk away from a business that looked successful on paper but no longer resonated with my heart. I took nearly a year to slow down, journal, and brainstorm what I wanted to do next. I thought this break would bring clarity, but instead, I felt increasingly alienated and stressed, my thoughts trapped in my head.

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The Turning Point: Facing Stress Head-On

One day, I stumbled across an interview with Jeff Bezos, who said something that hit me hard: “Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something you can have some control over.” That was my wake-up call. The moment I launched my new YouTube channel, everything changed. It gave me a platform to get my ideas out into the world. Sitting in front of a camera, crafting titles, thumbnails, scripts, and edits forced me to see my ideas through someone else’s eyes. It was like a mental reset, pulling me out of a rut and giving me purpose.

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The Reality of Starting Over

I’ll be honest—I thought growing this channel would be easy. Having already scaled a channel to 30,000 subscribers, I felt confident. Yet, a year later, I’m still under 500 subscribers. That’s when I realized that past success doesn’t guarantee future results. What got me here won’t necessarily get me there. Staying humble, doing the work, and striving to improve by 1% with each video became my mantra. This mindset pushed me to level up my craft. I had created content for years but never mastered the technical side—camera gear, framing shots, lighting, or color grading. With this channel’s shift to talking-head videos, I dove into tutorials, upgraded to a Sigma 16mm lens for that blurry background, and learned to tweak lighting and color grade footage. These skills didn’t skyrocket my growth, but they made me a better creator, with tools I can now apply across platforms like Instagram.

Learning What Works (and What Doesn’t)

My early videos did well for a small channel, some hitting 400, 500, or even 800 views with great engagement. But then, some recent videos flopped. Analyzing them, I noticed a pattern: the flops were theoretical, disconnected from my personal experience, while the best-performing videos shared my story—like one about building a personal brand or another breaking down a content creation method I tested. This taught me a crucial lesson: people don’t just want information (they can get that from AI like ChatGPT). They want you. It’s why it’s called YouTube. Audiences connect with personal stories, with creators who’ve faced and solved problems they relate to.

This realization was freeing. For the first time, I didn’t feel the need to perform or pretend to be an all-knowing authority. I could just be myself, sharing my journey authentically. Storytelling and teaching from experience build rapport and help viewers see themselves in your story.

The Key to Growth: Knowing Your Audience

Reflecting on why my first channel grew to 30,000 subscribers while this one hasn’t yet, I pinpointed one key difference: I deeply understood my audience back then. I knew their questions and needs, creating videos that answered them and ranked well in search. With this channel, I’m still figuring out who I’m speaking to. It’s humbling to realize that growing a YouTube channel isn’t just about you—it’s about your audience. Yes, authenticity matters, but you’re making videos for others to watch.

Why You Should Start a YouTube Channel

Starting a YouTube channel is one of the best ways to build a personal brand from scratch. It’s an exercise in self-awareness, forcing you to refine your thoughts, clarify your purpose, and discover who you’re here to help. It’s messy at first, but that’s how it should be. It’s not about hitting arbitrary subscriber goals—1,000, 10,000, or 100,000. It’s about showing up consistently, making better videos, and getting to know your audience and yourself better.

If you’re sitting on ideas that feel stuck in your head, YouTube is the place to get them out. It’s a journey worth staying on.

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