Short answer
Before you start
- Your week in front of you, so you can pick a number of streams you can actually keep
- A few streams already done, with or without anyone in chat
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What to do
- 01
Redefine what consistent means
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 0:40 ↗Three months in, you set a Tuesday and Thursday schedule, and every missed day feels like you've lost everything. Nicole sees it differently. When you're just starting out, consistency isn't loading yourself down with fixed days and times. It's continuing to stream. Day one won't look like day 100, and you'll learn along the way. What matters is bringing the same will every time you go live.
How you'll know it's working: You can write one sentence about what you'll keep doing without mentioning a day or a time slot.
- 02
Lower the bar to something you can keep for a year
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 3:51 ↗Five streams a week, or three five-hour ones, sounds heroic right up until the first month is over. Nicole's first tip is to lower the bar and start small. One stream a week that you can keep up for a year beats five a week and burning out after a month, when you don't want to hear the word stream again. Set your minimum viable schedule. Keeping at it matters more than how often.
How you'll know it's working: You've written down your weekly minimum, and it's a number your real life lets you hit right now.
- 03
Turn your stream into a ritual
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 4:22 ↗When going live feels like one more obligation, it gets harder. What helped Nicole a lot was her Monday community stream, which these days happens roughly monthly or every 15 days. She knows that at 7 she'll hop on Discord with the group, chat, laugh, catch up on the weekend and maybe play something. It feels like a ritual rather than an obligation, because she wants to play with her friends anyway and streaming it is a bonus. Find a moment of your own that you look forward to repeating.
How you'll know it's working: Your weekly stream has one fixed thing you look forward to, like a chat segment, a game or people to play with.
- 04
Go out and find other streamers
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 2:02 ↗In the first months you might have two, three or four people in chat, and often nobody. Nicole is blunt about it: don't expect people to find you on their own, fall in love with your stream and shower you with subs and bits. Go find other streamers, join their chats and talk. That's how you meet people, and for Nicole that's where those early months start to bear fruit.
How you'll know it's working: This week you chatted in at least one stream run by someone you didn't know before.
- 05
Compare yourself with you, not with the big names
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 3:16 ↗You look at Rubius, Auron or whoever you admire and feel nowhere near them. Nicole asks a simple question: how long have the people you admire really been building this? Compare yourself with someone who's already successful and you lose. In her words, comparing yourself with someone else is the death of inspiration. Look at how you started and where you are now. Maybe today you've got two people who are always in chat cheering you on.
How you'll know it's working: You can name one thing you do better now than in your first stream.
- 06
Decide what today's win was
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 5:02 ↗You end the stream and the first thing you check is that you made no money, got no subs and nobody watched your ads. Nicole suggests keeping a different score. You went live and stuck it out for 30 minutes, an hour or two, with people in chat or without them. That counts. Treat yourself the way you'd treat your best friend and hype yourself up: you're starting out, you're having fun, you made friends, someone used your new emotes. Money helps, but it shouldn't be the only thing that measures your day.
How you'll know it's working: When you end the stream, you write one line about the day's win that has nothing to do with money or numbers.
- 07
If you must compare, research how they started
Nicole Rojas | YouTube | 5:52 ↗If you still want to look at the big names, Nicole says to look at where they were at the beginning. Dig into the story of a streamer or YouTuber you like: the times they had no viewers, the first things they pulled off. It gives you a more realistic picture of what it takes. Everyone who started was where you are now, learning OBS, learning to talk to chat, getting past the embarrassment and learning to edit. Her closing question: if you want to be like someone who's put in years, are you going to put in those years too?
How you'll know it's working: You've found a video or interview where a streamer you admire talks about what their first streams were like.
If something does not work
- Some days nobody shows up in chat
- It happened to Nicole in her first year too. She played a very niche game with two people in chat, or none. She doesn't sugarcoat it: streaming to nobody is hard. What helped her was finding her community and having her friends and her people back her up.
- I started with five streams a week and now I don't want to go live
- That's exactly what Nicole's first tip is meant to prevent. Drop to a minimum you can sustain, even if it's one stream a week. Keeping going matters more than the count.
- Everyone seems way ahead of me
- Nicole felt that too, making her tutorial videos. Everyone you admire went through learning OBS, learning to talk to chat and getting over the embarrassment. Compare today's stream with last week's, not with someone who's been at it for years.
- Every stream ends with me checking subs, bits and money
- Measured that way, almost every day feels like a failure. Before you look at any numbers, decide what today's win was: you went live, you lasted as long as you planned, someone in chat laughed with you.
Before your next stream
- Pick the day of your next stream within your weekly minimum
- Write down two streamers in your category to visit before you go live
- Have your end-of-stream question ready: what went well today?
- Drop the five-streams-a-week goal if you can't sustain it right now. And that's it.
No Avanzo en Stream... ¿Para Qué Seguir? | Te & Preguntas #3
Watch the full video (in Spanish) ↗Common questions
Is it worth continuing if I've streamed for 3 months and I'm not growing?
Nicole doesn't promise results, but she offers some perspective: she suggests picturing yourself streaming for 5 years. In her rough picture, the first 6 months can mean very few people, sometimes nobody, and after that you may start to see something come back from the people you met along the way.
How many times a week should I stream?
As many as you can keep up for a year. Nicole would rather see one stream a week that lasts than five a week that burn you out within a month.
Do I have to stream on the same day at the same time?
Not for Nicole, especially when you're just starting. It doesn't have to be the same day or the same thing every time. What matters is that you keep streaming.
Is it okay to cut back on how often I stream?
Yes. It's exactly what Nicole recommends if the schedule you set is burning you out. A minimum you can keep is better than a pace that makes you quit.
Did Nicole struggle at the start too?
Yes. In the video she says her first year was hard: some days nobody was in chat, and she felt a lot of people were far ahead of her. What stayed with her most were the friendships she made in her community, people who like the same things and back each other up. The video is in Spanish.
