Pokimane Reveals The Moment She Knew
Pokimane has become one of the most recognized faces in the streaming industry over the years. At the moment, she has roughly 5.3 million followers on Twitch. With such a degree of success, it's easy to wonder if this was her plan all along. Apparently, Pokimane remembers the exact moment that her career came into focus for her. According to the streamer, she came to the realization that Twitch was the ideal place for her when she was in college.
In a recent video posted to his channel, personal finance YouTuber Graham Stephan had Pokimane on as a guest. It was here she discussed her career and gave people a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into making a successful career out of streaming. This interview came together, as Graham explains at the top of the video, after the two of them had a friendly back-and-forth over YouTube regarding one another's businesses and lifestyles. During the interview, Pokimane describes when she knew she could do streaming for a living.
Early on in her Twitch days, Pokimane was going live as a part-time thing to help bolster her income and to connect with other gamers. At the time, she was a university student studying chemical engineering, so Twitch was basically just something she did on the side for fun that brought a little bit of money to the table. However, it quickly became apparent to her that this could be way more than just a hobby.
"It got to a point where one month, I made like $10,000+ in just brand deals," explained Pokimane. "And once that happened, I was like 'oh, okay, like, this can actually be a job.'"
At first, she was hesitant. However, she quickly came to see the benefits of approaching streaming as a business in itself. She explained, "I always felt like I couldn't see streaming as a full-blown job if it was always reliant on whether or not people wanted to donate to me or wanted to subscribe to me, or trying to incentive people to subscribe. It was really once I saw the connection with brands and being able to projects with them and stuff like that, that I could see [Twitch streaming] as a business or a long-term job."
In other words, Pokimane soon realized that making these kinds of brand deals and tie-ins would not only help her channel gain viewers and subscribers, but would also engage other businesses and yield even greater financial success. Another thing discussed at great length in this interview is Pokimane's sense of work ethic. As she explained to Stephan, she has had this kind of work ethic since she was in high school, so she's always focused on what comes next.
Pokimane has had a pretty great relationship with Twitch over the years. Earlier this year, she teased her fans that a big announcement was coming, but it turned out to be a big misdirect. In a humorous fake announcement video, Pokimane revealed that she had renewed her contract with Twitch, making it her home platform for some time to come. While she was clearly very happy to stay with Twitch, she did admit that it wasn't the easiest decision for her to make.
She was given the opportunity to move to Mixer, but she ultimately turned down what she referred to as "life-changing money" in order to stay with Twitch. As she explained during an appearance on The Misfits Podcast, "I'm very, very thankful, because ultimately, [Twitch] was the platform that I wanted to stay on."
On the downside of her relationship with Twitch, she has called out the kinds of sexist double standards she has experienced in the gaming community. Last week, she said that spending seven years "in majority male industries" has led to her seeing certain gender biases pop up when scandals occur.
Elsewhere in the interview, she also explained to Stephan that while the majority of her income comes from Twitch, "under 5%" of that money comes from donations. She wanted to make it clear that being a female streamer doesn't make it easier or more likely for her to make money off of donations. The rest of it comes from smart investments and sponsorship deals, as well as her contracted salary from Twitch.
So despite some of her frustrations with biases in the streaming and gaming world, it does seem like Pokimane doesn't regret her decision to embrace Twitch as her platform of choice. If this latest interview with Graham Stephan is any indication, Pokimane's drive only grows with time.