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Kwebbelkop: "I was told six years ago that I was too late to make it on YouTube"

Kwebbelkop: "I was told six years ago that I was too late to make it on YouTube"

Jordi Maxim van den Bussche - known as Kwebbelkop online - is a YouTuber, mobile developer and a business extraordinaire. 

At 22 years old he's already built himself an empire, comprised of a YouTube following of almost 8m subscribers, 1m follows on Instagram, and 362k followers on Twitter.

However, it's not the numbers that are making Kwebbelkop his best self. After six years of running a YouTube channel, he's found that the key to really enjoying himself and growing as a creator is to do things for the fun of it. 

Kwebbel also released his first mobile game this month - Impossible Runner. Due to the incredible support of his community the free-to-play platformer was downloaded over 100k times in it's first week. 

We had a chat with Kwebbelkop about his life on YouTube, his incredible growth and how he's now able to facilitate other goals with the success he's had through making videos. 

Influencerupdate.biz: First off, talk us through your YouTube channel. Elevator pitch! What do you do, how long have you been doing it?
Kwebbelkop: On my YouTube channel Kwebbelkop I make fun videos about whatever I want to cover. Most videos are gaming related but I also do silly challenges with my friends and family.

My goal is to entertain as many people as possible, mainly kids. I would classify my YouTube channel as a Let's Play channel with a touch of personal content. I've been making YouTube videos daily for almost six years now.

Did you have any idea your videos would be as popular as they have been?
No never! I always made videos for fun and before I knew it it became my job. Currently we set goals and always try to push them to the limits. For example hit 10M subscribers by the end of 2019.

How do you structure your work days? Do you find working from home a blessing or a curse?
I love working from home. Every day I wake up, have breakfast with my girlfriend and get started with work around 9-10am.

I start my day off by checking out what's new, any new games, memes etc. After that I start recording videos which takes 1 to 3 hours per day.

I then proceed to send my recorded files to the shared Dropbox account I have with the team. The team then proceeds to edit it, make thumbnails, titles etc while I keep an eye out on things and make sure everything goes as planned.

Who is your target audience, and how do you think that affects your work? 
My target audience is kids that like to play games. It affects my channel because I can't say any bad words, that's about it. I love to express myself in new ways, it pushes me to do new things and I like to try out new things. 

Do you think the negativity surrounding YouTube will eventually lead creators to hop over to other platforms, or is YouTube is too big to fail?
I believe that there could be another platform for creators to hop over to. At the end of the day I think having multiple platforms would be really good for the content creators out there.

Platforms that would compete would try to be the best, instead of YouTube right now which sometimes looks like it's not going full speed (They are still doing a great job!)

As a creator I would share my videos on all platforms out there. By then there will probably be an app where you can upload your video, title and thumbnail to and it will publish it to all 20 competing websites.

What do you think it means to BE an influencer? Do you think you have a certain responsibility to inspire and stand up for the right things, even if you don’t want to?
To me being an influencer means to express yourself and share this with the world. You don't have to be a perfect role model, but you should at least try. People make mistakes. I think you should do whatever you believe is the right thing.

How do you think the YouTube/Influencer is scene is performing currently? How do you think you’d fare if you started a new channel right now?
I think the current scene is a very healthy one! Everybody knows their place and new people come and go. If I would have to start my channel all over again I believe I would be where I left off in no time.

Six years ago when I started people would tell me that I was too late, there were too many YouTubers and I would never make it. Two years later people told me I got lucky, so I started a second channel which I got to over 1M subscribers. I don't think it'd ever too late. There is always room for original content and new creators.

What are your personal highlights of your career so far?
Releasing my very own game and sharing this with all my fans! I love to make content, not just videos, but also other stuff! I'm working on a book and many more games.

I think it's the most beautiful thing in the world, to think of an idea and to then make it reality. The beauty of all of this is that everybody with a computer and an internet connection can do this. 

Run your channel like a business if you want it to grow
Kwebbelkop

What advice would you give to people looking to start a YouTube channel?
Work hard, work very hard! It's not easy, I used to work 10-12 hours per day, every day, no weekends, no holidays. 

Currently I work a little bit less but still a solid 8-10 hours per day (This time with holidays) and I have an entire team of people helping me. Which brings me to, work smart! Do your research, run your channel like a business if you want to grow it. If not, then just have fun.


Editor

Danielle Partis is editor of PocketGamer.biz and former editor of InfluencerUpdate.biz. She was named Journalist of the Year at the MCV Women in Games Awards 2019, as well as in the MCV 30 under 30 2020. Prior to Steel Media, she wrote about music and games at Team Rock.