 What is up guys Karma Medic here and welcome back to another dose. We've actually done it. It's so crazy to say out loud, but recently this channel has passed 100,000 subscribers. I never would have thought this would happen back when I started my YouTube channel and still I'm pretty sure I don't really understand what it means to have a channel with 100,000 subscribers. It's impossible for me to sort of quantify that number and put into perspective that 100,000 people have decided to click the subscribe button on my YouTube channel. It's really crazy, but I'm also very excited and I can't wait to see where it goes from here. Ever since I hit 100,000 subscribers, I've been feeling very reminiscent, very nostalgic. And so in today's video, I wanted to go through sort of my journey on YouTube, how it is that I started and how we got to be where we are today. Alright, so let me take you guys way, way back and give you the backstory to my YouTube channel. A lot of you guys won't know this, but I've actually been making videos for a very long time now, way before this Karma Medic YouTube channel. I used to make videos on all kinds of different things, mostly me and my friends, for example, playing basketball or me making a little mini hoop compilation in my bedroom. And even before then, I was screen recording myself playing Call of Duty and making little montages out of cool clips that I would collect while playing video games. So yeah, I've been making all kinds of videos for quite some time now. I think that editing aspect is what really made me appreciate video as a medium for creativity. So I'd been watching others on YouTube throughout all of my high school and university years. YouTube was my main source of entertainment. It was something that I really, really enjoyed, but I never actually thought about making videos myself until I got accepted to medical school. Now my journey to medical school wasn't exactly the easiest thing. It took a lot of effort and honestly just an insane amount of work over a long period of time. And so when I was finally accepted, I think it was one of the proudest moments of my life. I was so happy. I was overwhelmed with joy. And one of the first things that I thought about after I opened the acceptance letter was that I want to help other people do the exact same thing. When I was applying to medical schools, there was almost no free information on how to do well on your entrance exams, how to perform well in interviews and anything like that. And over the years of applying to medical school, I felt like I'd become so knowledgeable in that space and that if I could share that information, it would be valuable to a lot of other people. And so in March of 2018, I decided, you know what? I'm going to set up my camera on my desk, this very desk over here, and just start making videos. Hi, my name is Nasser Karma. I'm 22 years old and I want to start making YouTube videos. I had no idea what I was doing. I was so nervous and I was so shy and you can really tell if you go back and watch that video. But honestly, that wasn't the point. I knew that I had really valuable information that could help a lot of other people. And even if I looked like an idiot doing it, I wanted to get that information out there. If you go back and watch my earlier videos, you'll see that I didn't care one bit about what my hair looked like, what I was wearing, what the background looked like. I mean, now I have a neon sign for God's sake. Like things have changed so much. But back then, I really didn't care about anything else. The only priority that I had was helping other students get accepted to medical school. There's this quote that I absolutely love. I'm pretty sure I heard it on a Matt Diavella video. And the quote goes something along the lines of, if you're not taking action, then you're standing still. And I feel like that is so true and it's very applicable to YouTube. I really believe that if you want to start something, just go out and do it. Your first 10, 20, 50 videos are going to be really bad. And that's fine. That's part of the learning experience. And that's how you're going to improve and get better. All right. So this was at the end of my first year back in March of 2018. I just started making videos on absolutely anything that I could, anything that I felt like I had knowledge on that I could share with others and benefit other people. So I started with my journey to medical school. I talked about MMI interviews, how to socialize at university. And one of those topics that I felt like I was very knowledgeable on was the UK cat. The UK cat, if you don't know, is now called the UK cat. And it's one of the medical school entrance exams here in the UK. This video really blew up for me back then. I think it got something like 100 or 200 views in the first week that I put it out. And I was in comparison to the 10 to 20 views that I was getting on the videos before. So comparatively, it was doing very, very well. And I know 100 views sounds very low to you guys right now, but I was so happy back then. If a video got 100 views, I was ecstatic. You know, that was 100 individual people that were watching my content, commenting on my videos, leaving me likes. It was amazing. And you guys were leaving comments on the videos, letting me know that you were actually finding them useful and it was helping you improve your scores. And so I felt like I was actually being valuable to the community. Now, once that UK cat video did really well, I started getting a lot of comments and requests to make other UK cat videos. And so I started this series about the UK exam where I was teaching people how to tackle every section of that exam and how to do well. And because there was nobody else making videos like this on YouTube, I ended up picking up some traction and gaining some interest from viewers like you. So this is the time when my channel started to grow a little bit. And by grow, I mean going from zero subscribers to something like 30 and then from 30 to 60. I think I hit 200 subscribers, something like two or three months into making videos. I just wanted to say a huge thank you for us reaching 200 subscribers. It took about two months to reach the first hundred and then just over a week to get to 200. So the channel's been growing really fast. So it took a very long time. And remember, that's me making videos every single week. It wasn't like I made one video and then just like waited. And a couple months later, I got some subscribers. I was making videos every single week pretty much as often as I could have because I was working a full time job in Canada at the same time. So yeah, things were really hectic. I finished my job at like five, six PM, come straight home and work on making a new YouTube video, edit it, get it ready for the next day. Oh, it was so, so, so hectic. I thought if the content and the value of the video was good enough, then that would be enough to bring people in and watch my videos. Once I finished the UCAT series, I wanted to continue making content that was educational that could directly help people get accepted to medical school. And so I moved on to a series about the MMI interview. Started talking about how to tackle specific questions in the MMI interview. And you guys seem to love those videos as well. They were getting a lot of interaction. My views were starting to pick up. And by that, I mean I would get something like 500 views on a video. And I was ecstatic. That was the best thing ever. So after making videos every single week for half of a year, we had finally reached 1000 subscribers. I got this glass jar and I filled it with M&Ms of the same color as the ChromaMedic logo. I did that to commemorate our 1K subscriber goal. This was an absolutely huge milestone for me. I was so happy and so excited that a thousand people had physically decided that they wanted to click subscribe on my channel. It was a huge achievement and I'm still very proud of that till today. Now at this point in my YouTube journey or YouTube career, whatever we want to call it, I started thinking that it might be cool to make videos that aren't 100% dedicated to education. Maybe I could make some videos that were more personal and focused more on me as a person. So I continued making educational content, content that would help other students get accepted to medical school that would add value to other people's lives. And at the same time, I would dabble and experiment with some of the more personal videos. So some of the videos that I made that were more along those personal lines were videos like what's in my medical school bag, my desk setup tour, and also things like how to take notes in college, how to take notes on your iPad, things like that. So fast forward a couple of months now, I was still making educational content. I even started making more UCAP videos because the whole year had passed and the next cycle of medical school admissions was coming around. So I was making more UCAP videos, more videos about A levels and IB exam revision, things like that. And then one day I was like, you know what, let me try making a vlog. Now vlogs were something that I really didn't want to do because I thought they would be so much work and it would be so embarrassing to film myself in public and it would just be really difficult and challenging for me. And all those things, vlogs definitely were. There was a very steep learning curve for me to be able to take my camera out in public and talk to the camera in public and I still get nervous about that even till today. And then one random day in May when I was studying for my final year exams of second year, I decided to make a medical school study vlog. And it's this video here. You guys have probably seen it because most of you will have found my channel from this video. Oh man, that video really changed everything for my channel. I recorded 250 gigabytes of footage for that video. Let me tell you, I'm never doing that again. I think that video took me upwards of 20 hours of editing. I think I did it over about a week. I was even editing on the flight on the way to Toronto to start my next job in the summer. But I guess it was worth it in the end because that video actually went viral. And it's so weird to say out loud that a video that I made went viral on YouTube, but it really did. In the first week or so, it got 7,000 views. I think it was like triple the next best video had ever done on my channel. And then after one week, it just skyrocketed. Over the next month or two, it reached somewhere between 100 and 300,000 views. I don't remember exactly, but it was an absolutely insane growth. At the time that video went viral, I had been making videos every single week for a year and three months or a year and four months, and I had reached 7,000 subscribers. Over the course of the summer with that video going viral and then the videos that I put out after it also doing very well, I ended the summer with 45,000 subscribers. That video currently has over one million views, which is just insane, insane, insane, insane. It's crazy. A video that I've made has over a million views. I don't even know what to say about that. And I've rewatched that video probably a hundred times trying to figure out what went so well about it, what people enjoyed, what gave it that secret sauce that made it do so well. And honestly, I just have no idea. There's a quote that I think is very appropriate here and it goes something along the lines of, luck is like a bus. If you miss one, there's always going to be another one. But if you're not prepared, you're not going to be able to jump on. I think for me, I had been making videos every single week for a year and a half. And so it was about time that that bus came that I was able to jump on and my video went viral and just everything worked out. I think if I hadn't been making videos so consistently and learning so much each week from making videos, from uploading videos, researching about how to make videos, how to improve them, then I wouldn't have been in the position for my video to go viral. I was in Toronto at that time, again working a full-time job in research. And I remember waking up at like 6 a.m. every single day to be able to respond to all the comments that were coming in. I would wake up and there would be like 150 comments and I would sit down and reply and give the little heart to every single one of them. I was so, so, so excited to interact with people, to say welcome to my channel, to give someone advice if they were asking me about medical school or whatever it was. It was an absolutely crazy time of growth for the channel and I was just so excited about everything that was happening. I really, really cherish that time. And then ever since that video last June, I've just continued to put out videos every single week. When I got back to medical school in my third year, I could see that the vlogs on my channel were doing very well. People really seemed to enjoy them and wanted more. So I continued making more of those types of videos while also sprinkling in educational content and dabbling with all kinds of different things that I just found fun. For example, meal prepping videos, how to take notes videos, study with me videos, just anything that I want to make really. And that's part of what I love about this YouTube channel is that I make videos that I really enjoy, videos that I want to make and I find fun, and hopefully at the same time add value to your lives in one way or another. And yeah, here we are in January of 2020 and we have reached 100,000 subscribers. When you see this video, I will have taken a two week break from uploading just because I felt like I was consistently running for the last year and a half every single week, filming, recording, coming up with ideas, editing, publishing videos. I felt like I was just on a train that was in full speed going, going, going, going and I just needed to stop for a bit. But now that that break is over, I'm ready to get back into it, making weekly content for the rest of 2020. YouTube is honestly such a great way to spend my spare time while I'm at medical school. It's helped me grow so much, not only as a person, but also learning skills and expanding my creativity and just, it's been so valuable to me. And I want to keep growing and see where I'll be in January of 2021. All right, guys, and I think that's where I'm going to leave this video. I hope you've enjoyed hearing about my YouTube journey from the very beginning of Until Where We Are Now. If you did, please do leave a like on this video and also subscribe to my channel to see more content from me in the future. As always, I will see you in the next one. Peace.