I think I know what I want to do…..

Last month I wrote my Twitch journey, and I did in November too. So here we are, and I’m writing about it again. That’s because I’m trying to get back to this blog’s roots. I want to write about me, and what I’m feeling – since I’ve decided that I won’t be classing myself as a ‘Daddy Blogger’ any more. I’ve been really enjoying my time on Twitch, it’s very addictive. When I’m not streaming I’m thinking about when I’ll be doing it next, what we’ll talk about, what games we’ll play. I’m mentally flooded with ideas, things I want to try, things I need to do to make it all better.

It’s a very weird state for me to be in. I really love my job, I enjoy it – but I’ve never really been driven, or focused with it. I do it, I do it well, I get paid my money, and that’s about it. It makes me happy, it doesn’t always challenge and stretch me though.

This Twitch malarky is absolutely fucking wild though.

I’ve really clicked with it. I love standing in front of the camera with my light on, the mic poised and the countdown ticking away. I really have no idea what will happen. I have some notes, and a few ideas and that is literally it. For someone who really struggles in social situations and can’t really deal with new people – I spend a lot of my time corraling and interacting with a growing group of humans. I’m pretty bloody proud of that.

The streams are evolving – as well as having some chatter, we now play some games. At the moment I do two streams a day – one from 9am with some games and chatter, then an afternoon stream that is mostly based around games. I’m trying to see what works, what doesn’t. Generally, everything seems to go okay, other times… it doesn’t. That’s fine though, you can only learn through your mistakes. I have so many ideas about things I want to try. I don’t want to be just another streamer – I want to be different. I want to be the best.

What I’m really loving is the sense of community we’re building. I’m just the idiot in front of the camera – the whole stream lives or dies on the audience, and the people are everything. Each day, the same, wonderful faces are returning, most days we have some new arrivals, and what is amazing a lot of them come back. Everyone is slowly getting to know each other, this bunch of awesome people are becoming friends, they chat off-stream, they support each other’s endeavours. It’s bloody lovely. It’s what I wanted when I first started – to bring together all the awesome people I know across so many networks. Getting them to hang out, and bring in even more amazing people – it’s working.

Today I hit 300 Followers, and I’m VERY close to hitting 100 Subscribers. Near 100 people (voluntarily) pay to watch my stream, to support it. Literally anyone can watch, it’s free. If anyone wants to jump in the chat – they can do that too (after a short registration process). I’m so happy and thankful that people take those steps and come back because they enjoy it, and invest a bit of time with me, and everyone else in the stream.

I’ve secured sponsorship on one of our games, so I’ve been able to upgrade my computer so the streams perform beautifully. Plus I can upgrade it further as my ideas grow and flourish. I want the streams to look as good, and sound as good as possible. Hopefully, that will distract everyone from the lack of quality content from my mouth.

I want to do this more. I want to grow it further. I’ve set myself of being a ‘Twitch Partner’ by Christmas. To achieve this I need at least 75 people watching my streams – every single one. It’s going to be hard, but it’s achievable. Doing the sums and working out averages – it’s definitely possible – maybe even before Christmas. I’ve never set myself targets before – I’ve never really planned to succeed – this is all very new to me!

So, if you’ve come and watched my streams – thank you so much. If you haven’t – then do me a little favour and try it – we’re all at kiphakes.tv every weekday from 9am and then around 3pm.

I really want to do this more and more, I want to grow this further – it needs more of you to come, and stay – and my word – you’re so very welcome.

Join Us.