Welcome to Streamers on the Rise, where we find streamers who are growing their channels, content, and audiences in extraordinary ways. Each week we’ll talk with a creator about what goes into livestreaming–both on and off camera.
When SideLogic started streaming on Twitch, he was convinced it was already too late to make it.
“I’m like, ‘Man, I really want to try Twitch streaming. I really want to try it. It seems fun. It’s not going to hurt,'” he says. “In my head, though, I had that mentality of, it’s too late. Everyone that is very successful in this industry, they started 10 years ago. The growth is going to be hard.”
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And he knew about who was successful. In middle and high school, he spent his post-class afternoons with videos from some of the most followed YouTubers and Twitch streamers of the time–like PewDiePie and Ninja–going in the background while he played games. By the time he graduated, he knew he wanted to do what they did. But how could he make a name for himself when everyone who’d ever be successful on the internet had already made a name for themself?
Obviously we don’t believe that–and now, having grown what he’s affectionately dubbed “one of the best communities you will ever come across on Twitch or any social media platform,” SideLogic doesn’t either. When you’re starting out, though, it can seem like every single other person trying to do what you’re doing is ten thousand miles ahead of you. Especially in streaming, where it can be difficult to build that crucial core audience.
Like many new streamers, SideLogic spent months streaming to virtually no viewers. It was disheartening but, determined to make it work, he went back to those streamers he’d watched growing up and asked for advice. One gave him this: “Social media is your best friend.”
That stuck with him, and soon after, during the early days of COVID, he got on “the dancing app, aka TikTok.”
We’ll let him tell you how it worked out below.
@sidelogic 13 Reasons why I’m built different 🚨 #warzone #cod #callofduty #gaming #gamer ♬ original sound – SideLogic
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: I’m familiar with you and with your channel, but for anyone who isn’t, give me a little bit of background about you and where you’re from and take me up to when you decided to join Twitch.
SideLogic: Well, how long has it been now? It hasn’t been that long. That’s the crazy part. The growth has been so insane. I think I started when well, gaming, I started at a very young age. I think I started for PC. Most people usually start for console, but when I was six my parents gave me a little PC. It was great. Then got into gaming heavily. Then when I was 10 or 11, I started watching PewDiePie. Still my favorite creator. Then I just got into YouTubers, and then Twitch became a thing, and then I started watching people like Ninja way before they blew off. Even when I started watching PewDiePie, I think he only had 50,000 subs. He was a lot smaller. He’s at what, 111 million now?
I started watching all these guys, and then I grew up with that. For me, you can call myself a nerd. I can call myself a nerd. It was like, go to school, come home, play games, and in the background on my iPad, have a YouTuber or a Twitch streamer up while I’m playing games every single day. That was my life for high school. Then I finished high school and then when I was 18, I was still gaming. I’m like, “Man, I really want to try Twitch streaming. I really want to try it. It seems fun. It’s not going to hurt.”
In my head, though, I had that mentality of, it’s too late. Everyone that is very successful in this industry, they started 10 years ago. The growth is going to be hard. That’s what everyone used to say about Twitch, especially. Growing on Twitch, it’s pretty much almost impossible now. Then I was like, you know what, I don’t care. I think after it took just pushing myself, I started streaming on Twitch first. I didn’t have any other YouTube channel or anything else. Then I think it was start of COVID around there, I really pushed myself for the first three months. I know most people get affiliated in a week or two, but I didn’t get affiliated for two months. I had no one watching.
Tubefilter: Oh, I know people who have taken months and months and months or years even to make partner. You’re definitely not alone.
SideLogic: I just had no one watching. I was doing it. I had a full-time job before that. I was working full-time. I would come home and then just press live and just stream for four to five hours. Then I just saw, no one was watching. It was okay with that. I think, it was one night when I was playing with a friend of mine. Then they’re like, “It’s sad, just streaming to no one, isn’t it?” I’m like, “Yes.”
Tubefilter: That’s a terrible thing to say.
SideLogic: Yes, I know. We don’t really talk anymore. Then that’s the day I’m like, “Man, there has to be like–” Because I think with me it was, even with the full-time job I had at the time, whatever I did, whatever game I played, I had to be really good at it. I really pushed myself to be really good. Then that’s the same with my life as well. Whatever job I did, I was really I tried to be number one, pretty much. I’m like if I want to take this serious or if I want to give it a chance, I need to at least take a shot. See what’s not a secret, but how do people grow really? Because just pressing live, I feel like it’s just not how you grow, at least to the speed that I want it to grow.
I was just doing some research and I even went to some of the streamers I used to watch at the time still. I was like, “Do you have any tips?” Then one of them said, “Social media is your best friend in this industry.” That stuck with me, social media. Then at the time, the dancing app, aka TikTok, was blowing up. I was like, “Let me just download it. I don’t know what I’m going to post, but I’m seeing a lot of people blow off from TikTok.” Then I downloaded TikTok and I uploaded my first video, which was unboxing of my headset at the time. It had 200 views. To me it’s like, I’m coming from Twitch where I was getting no views to 200. I’m like, “This is cool.”
Then I uploaded my next video, which was a trend streamers were doing back then, and it got 2,000 views. I’m like, “Whoa, wait a second. What is this?” Then I got really curious about it, and I was just like, “How?” I tried to understand how it all worked. I think what I did was I took two weeks off from my actual job at the time. All I did was just study this social media stuff. I was doing my homework on it. Then I was like, okay, so this app is blowing up people and obviously it does work. I just need to post content, heaps of content. Then from my social media that I’m growing, just promote it to my two channels. Let’s see how we go.
For two weeks straight, I just went hard posted every single day. I think my goal was to post five to eight times a day. That’s what I did at the time. It wasn’t crazy high-quality because even back then, not many people posted crazy-high-quality content, especially on TikTok. It was more like IRL stuff. I just went hard, then I think I went from pretty much 10 followers to 500. It just went up like that in two weeks. I’m like, “This is insane.” I just saw this tiny bit of chance of making this a career, a dream. This was my dream since I was a kid, but I didn’t think it was going to be possible until I gave it a shot, actually. Then turns out to be possible, that saying nothing’s impossible and that’s true.
It wasn’t very smart on me back then, but what I did was I was like, “I’ve got some savings, so what I’m going to do is quit my job.” [laughs] This is when I didn’t have a big following or anything. I was like, “I’m just going to risk it.” I’m going to go 110% in, and then just go all in with this Twitch streaming stuff. Then I quit my job and went full-time as a creator, you could say. I was streaming every single day and then I was posting, so my goal every single day was to post eight times a day. Then at that time, YouTube shorts came out and then all the reels and stuff on other platforms came out as well, which was great because I could just post whatever I’m posting on TikTok on those platforms as well.
Then I really stepped up my quality in editing as well. Then I found another, something else that I really love, which was editing actually. I don’t know. Most creators I speak to editing is not their favorite thing, but it’s one of my favorite things. I love gaming, but I also love the editing side of things as well. Then I just went all in. I think every Friday I was really in the headspace of I’m going to outwork every single person in this industry. Every Friday I was doing 24-hour streams. No sleep as well. I was streaming eight hours a day every single day. Then on Fridays, 24 hours, posting eight times a day. It was insane. I went absolutely crazy with it.
Tubefilter: I can’t believe you survived that.
SideLogic: I don’t know how I survived it myself. I think what it was just I was so excited. I didn’t see it as, “Oh, this is my job now.” It was more like, “This is my dream. It’s right in front of me. I can turn this dream of mine into reality pretty much.” I started from my little setup and then I saw growth and I just I kept pushing and I kept pushing. Then I think after one or two years, I think that’s when we hit total following of 2 or 3 million on all platforms.
Then that’s when I’m like, “It’s paying off.” Every platform’s changed, obviously. It’s so different now with these platforms. Even now, I know you can still grow from zero, thanks to reels pretty much. I really do think short format videos are the future because of people’s attention to videos and stuff because most people don’t like watching long videos. Then those short-format videos, most platforms push creators that have no following as well. That’s what I also like as well. Then I grew my community on Twitch and I still do it every single day and I love it.
@sidelogic NO CHILL ZONE 🚨 #warzone #cod #callofduty #gaming #gamer #trickshot #sidelogic ♬ original sound | Streamer – SideLogic
Tubefilter: That’s fantastic. I’m so glad. I would say we’ve been doing these interviews for this particular column for about five months now, I think, and every single person has said that it’s impossible. It’s just impossible to grow on Twitch alone. You have to put in this work to either network on other platforms or just do– The fact that you were doing eight-hour streams and then 24-hour streams is just complete insanity. Hopefully, is your schedule a bit calmer now?
SideLogic: Yes. My schedule is I’m not posting eight times a day. I’m posting 5+ posts a week, but it’s quality posts, fully edited, and so on and so on. Over time, what I also learned was streaming eight hours isn’t necessarily going to help you grow because I think everyone agrees that you don’t just grow from streaming. From my understanding, so when I click live, I’m doing it to my community and new people that are joining in. I just want to entertain them. I feel like to entertain for eight hours straight is hard without getting tired, or at the end of your stream, without looking like you’re about to fall asleep or something.
I really think if someone can obviously go for it, but I really think if you get tired for eight hours, just don’t do it. To me, it’s like I’d rather stream four hours. Those four hours are fully very entertaining, full energy and I’m posting quality video outside of streaming as well. Then if I keep doing what I’m doing right now, the growth will just– Obviously, I’m not going to grow as hard as I did during maybe last year because I think all creators have their own little prime time but as long as I keep at it with what I’m doing right now, I’m going to keep growing. It’s not going to be a plateau. It’s just going to keep growing but at a very small incline.
Tubefilter: At the same pace instead of having to stream for 24 hours. Putting that much effort into it, it shows you’re very dedicated.
SideLogic: Yes. In my head, even now, all I think about is just work and what I can do next. Since I started this, I’ve never woken up once and said, “Oh, my god, I have to stream,” or “Oh, my god, I have to work” or anything. I’ve been very grateful. It was truly a dream when I was a kid being able to– Even on YouTube, I’m so close to when I got my Silver Button, I was so excited. It’s like, “Yay, what’s next? Gold button.” It’s very exciting. It’s truly a dream that’s becoming a reality. I still watch those creators that I used to watch back then. PewDiePie, for example. I look at him, I’m like, “One day I want to do what he’s doing now.” He hasn’t retired fully, but he’s only posting once a week, but he’s so happy.
Tubefilter: It’s interesting to me that you said that you grew up watching Twitch, because I feel like a lot of Twitch streamers I speak to grew up watching YouTube and really didn’t discover Twitch until the last few years. It’s really interesting that you have that long history with Twitch.
SideLogic: Yes, because I used to watch a lot of creators before they blew up, and I still watch them. For example, Ninja is a good example. I tell small creators or creators that want to start this as well, I’m like, “If you’re going to do this, just know it might take a couple of years.” I think a good example would be Ninja, one of the biggest streamers, used to be number one for so long as well. He changed the whole industry as well a couple of years ago but before he blew up, he was streaming for eight years. No, seven years or seven or eight years before he fully blew up.
I’m like, just know it’s not going to take a couple of years. Maybe you might blow up in a couple of years, but it might also take five years, six years, seven years. There are people that have been putting a lot of effort and time and it’s obviously paid off for them. I like it. Twitch was cool. I found it pretty cool how you can tie it to creators because YouTube Live wasn’t a thing. You couldn’t stream back when I used to watch Twitch and then obviously, YouTube has the live platform now as well.
Tubefilter: Very interesting. How would you describe the audience you’ve built over the years? What’s your community like?
SideLogic: Really, they’re like family. I don’t really have a big family in Australia, anyways, because I’m from Iran and then we moved to Dubai, and then we moved here when I was a kid. It’s just my family. I don’t have any other family here. Since I was young, I’ve always just after high school, just come home, played games. This is just my whole life, just gaming but now I feel like I’ve got a family of my own. When I game, I’ve got people watching me and chatting and supporting. To me, it’s still sometimes wild what they’re doing. It really does feel like– That’s the thing.
I tell them, I don’t like calling you guys a community. It’s like you’re family. It’s like, I don’t even like calling them fans. You guys are my family now. That’s the thing as well. One thing I love about streaming is because you can build that connection with those people. When it comes to what creators or posting content, you can get heaps of viewers, but you can’t really connect with those viewers the way you can when you stream. That’s why I really do love streaming.
Tubefilter: That level of interactivity is unparalleled. There’s just nothing like it anywhere else.
SideLogic: Exactly. That’s why streaming is here to stay. I hope every platform grows. I know there’s a lot of platform talks these days with Twitch and other platforms but honestly, people keep asking me, “Are you going to change?” I’m like, “I’m happy.” To me as well, since I started this, money was never in the back of my mind as well. That’s why when Kick was blowing up, and it still is, and I hope they keep growing, but I never thought about, “Oh, my God. I’m going to think about switching” because I feel like everything I see is just money talk.
I don’t care about my money. I don’t. I just want to grow my– I’ve got this following. I’ve got these people that watch me every single day. I’m not going to just switch it up because of extra money. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Tubefilter: Which I feel like is a unique perspective, I guess. That’s been a lot of talk about like, “So and so says they’ll go to Kick for X amount of money.” Which, get that bag, man. Sure. But also, this dedication to the audience that you’ve built is also really important.
SideLogic: To me, I like playing the long game now. There used to be a time where I’m like, “If there was something I could do to help me grow faster when I was a bit smaller, I probably would’ve done it.” Now, I’m at a stage where I’m like, “Money’s not everything.” Especially now, I just turned 23. I would say I’m young. I’m happy where I’m at. I’m happy with what I’m earning. If I’m happy in that way, I’m not going to be greedy and want more.
Exactly, the platform talks. All I see on the news is, “Wow, this platform pays more than this platform.” I’m, “Okay, and?” It’s like they’ve almost turned streaming into a money thing. Streaming’s not about money. That’s just the cherry on top. The whole point of streaming is interacting with viewers live and making that connection and building that community, you could say.
Tubefilter: I do think there’s something to be said about Twitch dropping its revenue split from 70/30 to 50/50. I think it’s worth having those discussions, just because when you have a community as dedicated as yours, they want to be able to support you financially as well as with their views. I feel like when that kind of stuff happens, that there is a conversation worth having about the fairness of how creators are treated.
SideLogic: I agree. Look, I don’t think a platform at the same time should be– I’m not saying I agree with what Twitch is doing. That’s why I think also platforms like Kick are good to have around, new competitors. I feel like when there’s competition with these platforms, they’re like, “Okay.” They have to be more careful with what they do and stuff. I’m actually happy Kick is around now. A lot of people are loving that platform now because everyone’s just talking about it. I’m happy for them, but I’m also happy that Twitch is recognizing like, “Maybe we need to show a bit more attention or love to our creators.”
Tubefilter: Competition’s always good.
SideLogic: It’s always good, so that’s why I’m very happy. Doesn’t mean I’m going to necessarily switch, but I am happy that’s around.
@sidelogic What you doing if you die like this⁉️ #warzone #cod #gaming #gamer #callofduty #sidelogic #trickshot ♬ original sound | Streamer – SideLogic
Tubefilter: What are your overall goals or plans for the next year or so?
SideLogic: My goal is to stick to my routine, stick to my structure because I think it’s very important. As I say, I don’t really look at this as a job, but this is a business. I need to be smart about it. With every business, you need to plan out a structure, and that structure could be streaming every single day for this amount of time and posting this amount of videos a day. Stick to my structure and just keep pushing. People ask me like, ‘”What are you going to do in the next year or two?” I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing exactly.
My end goal, one day, obviously, I do want to be in the top 10 creators, but I’m still pushing. That’s maybe next 10 years, but that’s the goal. Just keep sticking to the routine and just keep working hard really. I don’t want anything more or less. I understand, with the experience I’ve got right now, there’s going to be times where my prime time might come back and blow up again out of the blue, and then I might not. It’s so different. It comes down to the games that come out as well. I’m at a very, I think, happy stage, you could say, where I’m like, “I’ve got a very good structure. I’m going to stick to it. I’m not going to get lazy with it, and then it will pay off eventually.” It might take a year or two or 10 years, I don’t care, but it will pay off eventually.
Tubefilter: I gotta say, I’ve been doing these interviews for a long time, and I think you’re probably one of the most secure and confident creators I’ve interviewed across any platform.
SideLogic: Confidence is very important. I feel like people love this industry, but sometimes I think they forget to realize, hey, this is a business and what does it take for a business to be successful? I’m very lucky. I don’t actually have many friends my age, but I do have friends that are like 35 to 40 that are very successful. One of them is my mentor. He owns the number one real estate agency in Australia. He’s like a big brother to me, running a very successful business. He’s taught me a lot of things. One of the most important ones was, if you have a very good structure and you’re not lazy, it’s almost impossible for a business to fail.
This industry as well, if someone’s doing streaming full-time, their business is full-time streaming. I feel like sometimes people forget hey, this is a business. You need to take it serious. When I say serious, it’s like set these structures, set these pillars, and stick to it. Yes, things happen. Obviously, viewership, it’s very normal. They drop, they come back up. Summertime, it’s great. Viewership goes up. Wintertime, it might drop, school and everything else. If you have the right routine and if you have the right structure, I feel like it’s very hard to fail.
Obviously, don’t be too greedy. I’m also one of the creators that always stay out of drama as well. I see a lot of creators that get into these crazy dramas with platforms and other creators. I’m in a very happy space in my head. In the past, there has been times where people wanted to start drama even with me, but I’ve always stayed out of it. It’s just not something–
Tubefilter: I don’t advise it. I feel like people get so addicted to drama because it’s such a quick audience builder, but then those people don’t stick around because they don’t care about you. They’re there for the drama.
SideLogic: Oh, exactly. You get a couple of followers here and there, maybe on Twitter or TikTok, even if you post. I think at least what worked for me, with my morals, I’m not going to hate on people even– How can I hate someone I don’t even know? People seem so hateful online sometimes and I’m like, “I don’t understand.” Like, “You don’t even know this person.” You can dislike someone, sure, but, even if you dislike them, block them. That’s it. That’s so easy. Blocking someone takes five seconds, instead of making a whole video, or tweet, or something about someone and ruining your– I stay out of that.
Tubefilter: Highly advised. I wish more people thought like that, because It’s very helpful. Anything else you want readers to know about you?
SideLogic: Not really. If someone wants to know about me, they can always just– As I say, I do stream most days six out of seven days. My content’s everywhere. I think my number one tip would be, as someone that’s in this industry or someone that wants to join the industry, I think for people that want to join this industry because it’s their dream job, it’s possible. I used to think it’s too late, but it is possible. Just start. Social media is your best friend. I think someone said something to me the other day and it was a good one. I hear this a lot. Social media is the future, but someone’s like, “No, it’s the present.” Social media is the present. I think the future would be AI, and that’s around the corner.
I feel like people just need to use these platforms we have. If a new platform gets, I remember when Facebook Reels came out. Not many people were posting on it. I’m like, “I don’t get it.” It takes maybe 60 seconds while you’re uploading on YouTube Shorts and Facebook. I was doing the same. Then I realized one day, one of my videos got no views or anything on other platforms except on Facebook. That can happen as well. Use every platform possible if you can, treat it as your best friend. Then people that are in this industry, if you have the right structure, you will succeed. Just keep at it and don’t get lazy.
