STH hit a major milestone last night, 200,000 subscribers on the YouTube channel. Since we hit the milestone, I thought we should at least memorialize the milestone with a post.
The Road to 200,000
For those who might remember, we hit 100K subscribers the last few minutes of Q3 2022 on September 30, 2022. Publishing video content along with written articles started in January of 2020. We had a few thousand subscribers (well under 10,000) at that point just due to posting screen captures for reviews we were doing and a few guest appearances on other YouTube channels. Eleven quarters later, we went from under 10,000 to 100,000.
The STH YouTube channel was created on July 8, 2012 with the idea of posting content like those screen captures in a few reviews. For the first four years, we were at a one-video-per-year pace, but the channel was still there. As a fun aside, we hit 200K subscribers on the channel creation birthday 11 years later.
In the recent STH Q2 2023 Update I noted how the STH YouTube channel growth felt like it has been accelerating since mid-February 2023. Here is a quick look at the four-year chart to show this with October 1, 2022 being highlighted as the first day over 100,000.
Now for the embarrassing bit. With 100,000 subscribers I was refreshing constantly and may have had an evening espresso just to ensure I was awake to get 100,000 exactly. At 200,000 I did not have the espresso and fell asleep. 10 hours driving along and walking around properties in the summer heat looking at potential studios for STH (and doing more today) took my energy. That is why we have a 200,002 screenshot and not a 200,000 screenshot.
Final Words
A quick thank you is in order to the STH team, for making this possible. If we were still in 2018 mode with me doing most of the content on STH, there is no way we would have been able to publish videos regularly. A special thanks to Bryan since in the last year almost all of the photos and B-roll we have used were his. If you see black gloves installing hardware, handing me switches on set, or doing other tasks, that is Bryan too.
Based on the growth rate earlier this year, we were trending to gain 54,000 subscribers total in 2023. So far, we are closer to 82,000 already this year. The trend is very good, but I am a bit wary since it can change. Much of this seems to be driven by the YouTube pushing our content mostly to unsubscribed viewers and that is always something that can change in an instant. Still, it is fun to see growth like this.
