HeroKerrey: From Just Dance to Full-Time Streamer | Episode 12

From Viral Typos to Full-Time Creator: Kelly's Twitch Journey & Insights
Follow Kelley on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/herokerrey

In this episode of the Growth Trade Podcast, Kelly shares her inspiring journey from discovering Twitch during the pandemic to becoming a full-time streamer. She discusses the importance of community, authenticity, strategic growth, and balancing content creation with charity work.

Find Kelley everywhere: https://beacons.ai/herokerrey

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Transcript

Teaser

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I had gone into that week thinking I'm gonna go to the summit and then I'm gonna quit when I get back. I'm gonna fundraise for St. Jude in May and then I'm gonna quit because I just felt like I wasn't seeing any results and I was burnt out. I was tired. You know, it was adding strain to my relationships. I legitimately haven't seen my like IRL friends for like years. I lost friends along the way because I was so serious about it.

Patty 0:34

Welcome to the

Intro

Patty 0:35

Growth Rate Podcast, where we dive into real streamer stories and find out what is behind this streamer. I'm your host, Patty, and I'm so excited about today's guest. She's a full-time content creator, a certified Yapper, just dance legend, and she went viral for a typo, which we are absolutely going to talk about. Hi, Kelly. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Hi, Patty. Thanks for having me. What a what a nice intro.

Patty 1:07

I like to

HeroKerrey origin story

Patty 1:08

start our episodes asking about your origin story. What brought you to Twitch? Why did you start? What was like your your mindset back then? So tell us all about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, it's actually interesting because I didn't know Twitch existed prior to the pandemic. And had I known that it existed, I probably would have been on from like its early inception, to be honest. But uh yeah, similar to most streamers nowadays, I I joined when we were stuck at home. And when I first joined, it was to just join my friend's stream. Like I had a coworker at work, she was into gaming, and we were kind of like, oh, we should game together. And she's like, Yeah, I'm starting streaming. And I'm like, what the heck is this? So uh I checked it out. I was on a couple, I was on her streams a little bit, and then from there, a couple of her viewers were like, We want to see Kelly's perspective because we used to play ARC and I would like get so scared at the dinosaurs and I'd be screaming. So um, it actually started because of Phasmophobia. So I pretty much said, like, hey, like if you co-stream this scary like ghost game, I will start doing it. And that's kind of how it started.

Patty 2:21

That's a very interesting story because I found you through just dance, and maybe that's like when you, you know, started growing more. Yeah. So I had no idea that you played all these other games before.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, it was uh it was intended to be like variety at first because I like I was doing my research of like, okay, you could go into a niche or you could do variety, but at the time, like I didn't really have anything that I felt comfortable like continuously streaming. So I just did whatever I wanted, and then over time it slowly grew because we, you know, built the community off of my personality. That when like just dance became something I fell in love with, it was just like I already had like a core group of people that like supported me through it because it was it was kind of hard for me to stream it to start because I was like embarrassed about it.

Patty 3:07

Yeah, I I totally see that. I only do just dance like on like celebration streams, and it's always at a goal, and then everybody is like genuinely excited and asks for like the craziest songs, and I'm like, okay, it's just one day. I guess it's something that with like practice, you you get like desensitized to it, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, well, when I first started, um, I didn't like tell people like, oh, this is something I want to like continuously do. I was just kind of like testing the waters. So I actually showed up in a sumo suit and streamed in a sumo suit, and I also had COVID. So like I it was just like a mixed bag of everything, and I danced for three hours straight, and I was totally fine, like you know, health-wise, and thought to myself, like, if I could do this while I'm sick, then maybe I can do this once a week. So kind of slowly transitioned into you know, adding it to my schedule, and yeah, I haven't stopped streaming it since.

Patty 4:06

So now you're full-time, right? But

Transitioning to full-time streaming and balancing jobs

Patty 4:09

before you had a job while you were streaming?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, I was working full-time in tech, so I think I probably put in a max of like six to nine hours a week. When I first started, it was two streams, and then I gradually increased it to three, and then when I went full-time, obviously I had to figure out what worked best for me. So now I do full-time, which I'm very blessed and very grateful for.

Patty 4:36

How was that progression? Was it like when you started making like a certain amount of money that you knew you could transition?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

So I was promoted to full-time streamer. That's what I like to tell people. I basically got let go at my job, and which was about like last year, like August 2025. So I had already been talking to my community about potentially taking the leap of faith. So when that happened, it was kind of like everybody who I told that I like lost my job, they were like, Well, didn't you want to go full-time anyways? So it was kind of like a everyone around me was already encouraging me. And while I'm not making like a lot of money on stream, I do have a very supportive, you know, partner who encouraged me to do it. And we, you know, one thing I will always talk about is like finances, like very transparently, because I just feel like it's not like a normal thing to talk about. So we've been we've paid off of like most of our debt like a long time ago. So we were able to kind of like take like a risk to be like, let's let's try it for a year.

Patty 5:45

That's great. I feel like being transparent, it is something we don't really see. Like, I see Catliente, she's like the only bigger one that I see being super transparent about it. I did not know that you were just you were like me. I was also I was like a web dev and I was also a head go.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Really? I'm so sorry, but wait, I've actually always wanted to be in web dev.

Patty 6:10

Okay, let's go back a little bit.

Challenges of growing with variety content

Patty 6:12

When you you started then, you had like those viewers from your friend. How was like growing in those early days?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

It was very slow. I never really had the experience of explosive growth. Contrary to popular belief that when you go viral, like everyone will just come. I really didn't want to grow that way because I didn't think it would be ever sustainable. So that's part of the reason why I never picked a niche early on. So it was kind of hard because I always knew that I wanted to kind of do this in a way. And when you're choosing something like variety, it's really difficult to grow. So I it was kind of it was kind of hard. So mentally it was like trying to cheer myself on and like trying to see the bigger picture and having like good people, you know, supporting me with whatever I was trying to figure out, I think continued like to help me. But I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of hard. I tried a little bit of everything. I tried posting on TikTok three times a day for like a year that burned me out. I've tried streaming different games, I've tried collaborating with all kinds of people and learning like who I vibe with and who I don't. So it was it was a mixed bag, but I would say like it was very rewarding to go through that because it makes me appreciate like what I built now.

Patty 7:30

From all those things that you just said that you tried,

The power of genuine networking

Patty 7:33

which one would you say helped you grow the more?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

It's gonna sound like cliche, but like networking, but like genuinely networking. Um, I think that's something that I'm really proud of that, like my corporate experience taught me is like how to be like intentional with like you know, connecting with people and like uh you know, finding like-minded people and not doing it for the sake of like I want to grow, you grow. So if you're happy and if you support the person that you know you want to get to know, like it will in turn, I guess, reward you, whether it's through viewers or just like content opportunities or just like learning opportunities. So I think I've gotten to where I am now because I just love this industry and I love talking to people in the industry, and I like to know like everyone does their stream differently, and it's you you can learn something new from anybody you talk to.

Patty 8:32

I totally agree. Also, with the networking, I feel like if you go with the intention of like gaining something with the people you're you're going. I mean, there it's a different type of burnout because imagine you want to network with someone just because you're big, but you don't really vibe with them. You're like forcing yourself to watch these streams that you don't really enjoy. So, yeah, if you want to network, find the people that you actually like watching.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, people can tell when it's not genuine, and people can tell if you're there just for the growth, and it's like you can't get around that, so you might as well go find the people that you vibe with.

Patty 9:14

Yeah. So you've built something

Shifting focus from Just Dance to broader content

Patty 9:18

real in it, just dance, and you said it was because you already had like this core community, and now you kind of do more variety. I don't know if it's because of the like the time zone. I don't see you do as much just dance as you do.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

No, I don't do it that much. It's not you.

Patty 9:39

Yeah, how did that transition happen? Did you were did you get like tired of doing always just dance?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

I think it was a business decision. So I if you look at like my stream stats, you'll see like up until I went full time, I primarily focused on just dance because in my head I was like, well, I don't have a lot of time to give because I'm working this other job. So I kind of focused on just dance because I thought that was kind of expected from me. And I didn't have much wiggle room to really try anything else, anyways, because I had like three hours per stream, which really cuts a lot of opportunities what I could potentially try. So I never streamed games because of it, because it's like you can't. I did it once. I tried to play um Pokemon. I did a I did like a Nuzloc one day one time, and it took, no joke, six months to get through the entire game with my schedule because I was working and I just it just didn't have the time. So when I went full time, it gave me the opportunity to really reconsider like what do I want to do at this time? I realistically can't dance every day. That's gonna be so exhausting. So I did it mainly because people are not gonna watch if I dance for five days and it would burn me out. And it kind of gave me the opportunity to test different things. And also, I'm like 32, so I don't know, I might like trip and like you know, throw out my back just because I'm old, like tomorrow, like you never know. So if I wanted to take this seriously, I thought to myself, like, I need to build something where I can play anything I want so that if something happens to me, I I know people will be there. So it was an intentional thing, so I only really stream it like honestly, like once a week, to be honest. Whereas like I used to stream it like two times a week. It was primarily my content back in the day. Does that answer your question?

Patty 11:40

Yeah. Do people still see you as a just dance girl, or did did the full time and the shift uh change that?

SPEAKER_01 11:50

I think people think I'm variety now. It's it's really interesting. I didn't think it was gonna take such a short time, but I think I had like the last couple months, there was like a stint where oh, it was when my PC broke. My PC broke around like February of 2026, and it meant that I could only do really specific things. So I felt really bad that I couldn't dance because at that point I thought, like, oh, people kind of know me as the just dance girl. And that was the realization of like people don't actually see me like that because they're still showing up. My numbers are doing fine. And they even like said to me, like, we still we think you're variety now. Like, you haven't danced in a month because you can't, but like you don't need to stream this. And I also kind of noticed a shift too with the chat where like just dance is interesting because you're dancing and you're also in between dances, you're talking, so it's kind of promoting like a lurky kind of vibe, which again is fine, but I started to feel like I was personally enjoying the non-just dance streams because I could talk to people more because I was either gaming or I was like chatting, and like I I still like my just dance streams, but I started to like to prefer, you know, the gaming over the non over the dancing.

Patty 13:08

It's also less exhausting, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Oh yeah, yeah. You're sweaty, you're trying to do like temperature management of the room. I gotta move this out of the way. So it's it's a lot of effort, you know. I wish more people could stream it, but it is like a really high barrier to entry type of content to stream.

Patty 13:26

It's like Beat Saber on my old apartment. I had like half of my room with like green screen just for beat Saber streams. It's it's so much.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Oh, you made me just like remember like I used to stream just dance with green screen. With the green screen, yeah. Like I completely forgot about that because I kind of phased out of it. And I guess to people listening, when I first started, I was too shy to dance with just myself. So I would wear green clothes and then chat would change the patterns through channel points. Cause that was like in my head, my way of like being able to create interactivity, and then like people wouldn't look at my body, they would look at the patterns. So I did that for like two years, and then I would say, like, recently I've been like, nah, I think I I think I could do it now. I could just dance without it.

Patty 14:12

It was about that time I would see you like

TikTok, VR, and content evolution

Patty 14:15

on TikTok. It was because I think two 2023, I think. Uh, that's when I got into VR. And I feel like the Beatsaber community overlaps a little bit with the gist dance. And that's when I started seeing your videos.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Thank you. Because that makes me feel like all those years of TikTok actually paid off in some way. Now it's deleted. I don't have it anymore.

Patty 14:39

Really?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I I personally just feel like I'm like an old school content creator. Like I know I'm only kind of like five-ish years into it, but when I think about like what do I want to put out in the world and like my intentionality, I don't really want to be like a here's like five ways you can do this, blah blah blah. And it's like you need like a five-second hook, and like you, I don't know. I just I'm not really into that short attention span kind of short form content. And TikTok made me feel that way. And I tried live streaming on TikTok too, and that was a whole other beast that I didn't like either because it's filled with children who don't understand that I just danced and I'm sitting down breathing, and then they're like, Why aren't you dancing? It's it's very uh uh it's very short attention span. I didn't like that. So this year I just nuked it. I just I can't even log on anymore because the account doesn't exist.

Patty 15:34

So what did growth

Growth in niche communities and support dynamics

Patty 15:37

look like? Like inside the just dance space, and then uh like when you were not doing only just dance. Do you feel like growing was like it was slower on one compared to the other?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

I would say it's been pretty steady. I feel like I think of a couple moments in my content creation journey that have helped and created like a little spike. One of them was definitely focusing and just dance because you know, part of the reason why I did it, aside from like wanting to exercise, because I was like at my heaviest during the pandemic, and uh, you know, I was like in my little variety bubble. I I wanted to be a part of the just dance community because there were women there. It's like I'm sure as you could probably relate, like I've always loved games as a as a you know young girl, but it was hard to find other women that liked gaming growing up, and we grew up in an age without social media, so you couldn't really connect easily with others. So you were influenced with whoever was around you. So when I kind of like was starting to get to know Twitch a little bit more, I stumbled upon just dance, and I was like, what do you mean? There's women on this platform. What? They play games too, so I had like such a high motivation to like network and get to know the girls more because I just wanted to be friends with them, to be honest. So there was there was growth from that because when they when they finally accepted me and they and I got the invite to Center Stage, which is like the primary like just dance team on Twitch, um, I definitely did feel like there was a bump in support. So it was like my core community plus them for a bit. And then I think the second bump was I did a just dance workshop at TwitchCon 2023 with my pals Ariel M and Megan the Mamba. We we did the first North America like just dance workshop. Um, that was probably the second bump because I think people were able to put like a face to a name, but also see like I was serious about it. But also people did come to it. So people online were excited to go and like celebrate, and you know, it was like a communal thing, and then people in person who didn't know just dance were like, Oh, this is really cool. Like, let me check this out. So I would say like those were the two big bumps, at least from just dance that helped with the growth.

Patty 17:58

I I always feel like when you focus on a game, you find a group, and yeah, there's a lot of different type of types of communities, but the good ones they support each other instead of seeing each other as competition, and exactly there's a lot, a lot like that. And I also find a lot of women nowadays in the retro section, and it's like a lot of millennials as well, like around our age, because it's like remembering games from our our childhood in retro, it's really fun.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

I love that, yeah. It's uh it's tough though, because finding those communities is is kind of hard to understand who's there to be like genuine and who's there just to I don't know, you never know, but like because like you can anybody can make a Twitch team, but it really takes like a leader to like cultivate a good like community, and I think finding that is is tough sometimes. So, you know, just dance. I got really lucky that the people in it are really good. It's small enough where there's like not really any drama, and we all know each other's names because we're small, but we do have, you know, there's a downside to it. Uh just dance is not a really big community, so it is like kind of dying right now, and it's hard for people to stream because it's it's physical, you know?

Patty 19:22

Yeah, I see the same in like a beat saver. Beatsaber had like a a peak, and now it's like we still know every every creator that does beat saver, but it's just there's not that many people watching anymore.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, I don't know why they don't just make like a rhythm game category, just like rope it all into one. You know, like there's food and cooking, you know, there's science and technology. Why can't we just have rhythm? Because we're all so niche that it would just be better if it was like roped in together, in my opinion.

Patty 19:50

I don't know who needs to hear that, but it's a great idea. So the typo that went viral,

The viral typo story and its positive charity impact

Patty 19:59

what actually happened there?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah, that's my other big bump in uh in growth there. So 2024 August, it was the summer I hit partner, that was a really big milestone. We did a charity stream, and one of the incentives I had was like if you donated like I don't remember how much it was, I guess five dollars. Yeah, I think if you donated like five dollars or something, I would write your name on my body. So typical charity incentive thing. Um, one of the things that I'm always gonna advocate for is that if anybody's doing any charity streaming at Twitch, at people, at brands, because they will see it, even if something is something to sometimes it doesn't come out from it. You never know that one time it could happen. And I remember there being like a some sort of call to action on the Twitch page being like, if you put like a hashtag something, I don't remember what it was, I think it was like tiltify 10 or whatever in your title. Like, we'll try to, you know, stop by and donate. So I did that, and then I tweeted them and added Twitch right before I went live. So I'm doing my own thing, and then I get a $50 dono from Twitch, and it's writing their name on my body 10 times. So I'm all flustered because the official account came in, it's an it's a donation. I'm like, okay, let me write their name 10 times. And I was like, let me just put Twitch on my head. And I don't know if anyone's ever done this, but trying to write on your forehead is kind of difficult, especially when you're like, you got like a I don't have like a mirror. You have to mirror the phone. Yeah, and it is mirrored. So I missed the C and didn't realize that I did that. And it became viral and uh created a lot of chaos. But I I'm really happy that it happened because I think uh a lot of feedback I got from that moment was that like it was a genuine live stream feel, like a nostalgic old school live stream feel, and it just made people happy. So I did I did a little oopsie, but at least it made people happy. We fundraised for charity.

Patty 22:07

Yeah, at least it was like, you know, a Twitch fail moment, but a good one.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Patty 22:16

In the field of

Lessons learned from IRL streams and subathons

Patty 22:18

like growing on Twitch, is there something that you were genuinely excited to try and totally flopped, or like the opposite something that you did without thinking and it actually paid off?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So the first thing that came to mind was IREL. So I've always been fascinated by IRL streamers because it's like, I don't know, it's it's tough. It's a really hard thing to do because you have to worry about so many things. But I didn't really want to be stuck at my desk at all times. And I also wanted the flexibility of, you know, streaming from outside the desktop area if I was traveling, so then I could keep up with my schedule. And it's like it's two hours of your time, you know, you're on vacation. I just I kind of felt like that would be a really cool thing to do, just be like touch base with chat. So I learned how to do IRL back in 2024, but also uh a driving force for that was I fundraise for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital every May. And our just dance team gets invited to like a creator summit, um, like a couple weeks before the official like you know, kickoff of the of the month. So when I got invited that first year, I really wanted to host like a just dance like center stage stream. So obviously, not having like my PC with me, I was like, I have to figure out how to do this. And like one of the challenging parts is like hotel Wi-Fi. Like, I don't want people to join the stream because like knowing that I'm gonna have all these people, they're gonna bring all their audiences. It's gonna be like the one of the first times that I'm gonna have a lot of people in my chat. I didn't want them to be like, we're disconnecting, we're disconnecting, like Twitch is down. So it was important for me to understand how to like keep it up. So that's kind of why I leaned into IRLs, just to kind of understand the technology for that. And I would say that's been a very, very positive thing for me. It's it was not a flop, and I still IRL stream and I still love it. And um very happy and grateful that I have the that as an option for a tool because when my PC borked in February, I was able to leverage that knowledge to keep streams up while I was trying to troubleshoot like what was happening on you know my streams. But for a flop, subathons.

The challenges and realities of subathons

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Surprisingly, subathons. Because uh back in January, I had this dumb idea where I was like, the stream doesn't end until I beat Ocarina of Time, and I was so pumped for it. I was like, Oh, I'm gonna keep the stream up. I know how to do this because of my IRL knowledge. I tried it, I felt like shit. I'm like, how do people do this? Like, you spend all your time on camera playing a game, and then you go to sleep, and then you wake up and you keep going. I felt so zombie-like. And it was like, thank God I learned how to do this now in like January before like September, September season comes up, because I would have been like, there's no way that I can do a sub-athon. So it was like it was like a really small baby like attempt, and I learned very quickly like I hate this, is not as fun as it looks.

Patty 25:32

Yeah, I feel like subathons are are really hard because you either find a way to do other things while you're still streaming, or you know, all of your time goes to this. If you want to create other content, if you want to do all other things, you just you can't.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah, and if you have like a family or you know, you got your obligations, you like you can't do that. So it's like whenever I have to do long streams, um, like 12-hour streams, I have to like arrange like who's watching the dog, you know. Um, I have to, you know, I I want to hang out with my husband, you know. It's like when am I gonna spend time with him? So it's like I want to normalize healthier habits. Like sabathons were cool back when it was like during the pandemic because we had nothing else to do, but it is not as glorified or cool as it sounds when you're actually executing it. You're just tired.

Patty 26:24

I see a lot of people doing it, doing it differently now because back in the day it was like 24 on 24 hours, always going. Nowadays, I see people that you know they do longer streams and they do stream every day or take like one day off per week so they can, you know, recharge a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Or they'll like end the stream and keep going. I don't know. I just feel like you go big or go home. Like it's like you're either doing it the right way or you're just doing two 12-hour streams. Like it's okay to it's okay to mark it as like I'm gonna be live for 24 hours this weekend, and then yeah, but don't call it a sub-athon, in my opinion. Like, yeah, because it gets a bit confusing, in my opinion. And I think uh part of the hype of a sub-athon is putting in the work and the effort of doing it that long. So personally, I I think it's a go big or go-home thing. You could call anything a celebration, you know, like it doesn't have to be a good thing. Yeah, exactly.

Patty 27:23

It's also very taxing on the tech, you know, having your computer being going like 24-7.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

And honestly, like out of all my years of content creating, like, you know, for celebrating milestones and for fundraising for charity, a lot of the money, at least from my experience, happens in the beginning. It like it's a very like everything's hype at the when you start it, then it's like a plateau for like the honestly 80% of the length of the time. And then when you get close to the end, then it hypes up again. So it's like strategically, do you really want to be live like for days if you know you're getting like revenue in the beginning at the end? Like, if anything, you should you should end it, you should like have yeah, and that way you can like rest and do anything else.

Patty 28:12

Let's take a a little

Connecting community with charitable causes like St. Judek

Patty 28:14

step back because you talked about St. Judes, and I feel like when when I see you, you're you have like a big connection to this. Can you tell us a little bit how this it started? How has it been?

SPEAKER_01 28:28

100% it was because of just dance, because I believe one of the very first videos I saw was um Little Siha or Avery, if you know her her first name. She was fundraising for St. Jude, and again it was that revelation of like there's women, and then I was like, you can fundraise what? So I was like baffled at the idea of like raising money on this platform because to me, I you know, I just was like, This is I just thought it was a video game, like you play games, so um realizing that again made me want to be a part of that community because I had not seen that yet at like such a team scale, because there's a lot of people who fundraise, but finding like-minded people that like continuously do it together, like that's kind of rare, I would say, especially like aligning with them. So I wanted to be a part of that. So I started fundraising by myself at first, and it was for a bunch of different causes because you have to get invited to the team, it's not like an application. So I was like, Well, I want them to notice me and I want them to see I am a serious person who wants to be into just dance, and also I do fundraise too. So I started charity fundraising um like a year before I was on center stage. It was like a year vision in my head. It's like I gotta start playing the game and I have to fundraise. So I did that, and then now I primarily only fundraise for Saint Jude because it's exhausting to fundraise. If I had all the time in the world, and you know, now that I'm full-time, I have to rely on my finances. Like I would charity stream, you know, fundraise every time, but now I have to be really selective. So I like to throw all my effort at St. Jude because it's like once a year and I love it. They also are very respectful and they treat contract creators like it doesn't matter whether you raised $1 or $10,000, they will appreciate you and they will, you know, treat you no different. And I think out of all the charities I've worked with, they've been the very first to like not only talk to me, but they talk to everybody. They invite us out to their campus. I got to see the, you know, the research that they do. I got to meet the staff, I got to hear from patients. So it felt very like personable than just like somebody cold emailing me, being like, Can you fundraise for this for this cause? And I'm like, I don't know who you are. Like, it's probably a good cause, but like you're asking a lot for just like something I really don't know. So I I really do love St. Jude because they they treat us very well, but it's also a really good cause because no family ever pays a dime. Uh, you know, treating kids with cancer, it's also a great mission as well. And they're not gonna stop until it's, you know, everyone, you know, until it's cured, you know.

Patty 31:28

Yeah, it's that's a really good reason, like as you describe yourself and being like very transparent and honest, like having a company that it's also has these values, it's the best way of doing it for sure. And you also touch on the point that the reason I would love to do charity as well. The reason I don't is because I can't, because you know, I barely am barely able to afford living and paying my bills with what I make. If I do charity streams, then all that's just going. I mean, it would be for a good cause, but I also need to pay the bills.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, it's uh it's uh you know a balance. And this is gonna be the first year for me that I'm full-time doing it. Where so like the last couple years because I had a job, I just went like a hundred percent like every stream I fundraised, and I was very happy that I did that, but now I'm like, what do I do this time? So I think I'm gonna be doing it like once a week, just so that like it's a balance of like getting money for myself and then fundraising.

Patty 32:36

So you are a big a part of the

Involvement in Twitch guilds and community support

Patty 32:39

the group for you know just dance, but I I see like on your panels, you're also on the Twitch's women's guild. How did you get involved with that? And how has that helped you or like the other way around? Do you help others on the same guilds?

SPEAKER_01 32:55

The Twitch Women's Guild, I think was just they announced guild, I think, in like 2023, and I was like, I want to be around more women, so I just applied. That's literally it. It's nothing magical about it. It's just I applied and I got in. It's kind of selective, so it sucks. Like if anyone's listening and they want to join it, like it's it's chosen by Twitch and it's random. So I was just really quick to to just apply. So as soon as like any post of anything, this is good like business advice. Most of the time, when I see anything that is like a call to action, just apply immediately because then you're like one of the very first names at the top of the list. So I was in person when they made that announcement, and I applied like literally in that second. So I've been in it for about three years, and uh I would say it's it also helped with the growth because they the Twitch Women's Guild helped with the campaign of making the Twitch thing like an emote. So like the viral moment happened, but then it also turned into a campaign to make a global emote on Twitch, and a good chunk of that was because the Twitch Women's Guild was so hyped for me that we all like tried to campaign together. So I'm very grateful that a bunch of wonderful women on Twitch like believed in that, and then we made it happen, so it's very cool.

Patty 34:11

Yeah, that's very interesting because I remember applying, I don't know if it was when it first came out, but nowadays, because I watch majority women as well. There's like a very specific amount of men that I follow, and most of them are all on uh the the guild, and I'm like, how how do they choose them? How how did I get in?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

It's random, chosen by Twitch. I feel bad because I wish I could give a better answer. It's not anything about knowing who you know. I mean, maybe you can network your way into knowing Twitch staff, but like most of the time they're like, it's not me. So I don't know who makes the decision.

Patty 34:49

Twitch being Twitch.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yeah, it's one of those things, yeah.

Patty 34:54

Doing a big zoom out now. You've done the corporate

Defining success and future goals

Patty 34:57

thing, the niche game thing, the viral moment. You do charity, you do a lot when I was like writing your uh episode plan, I was like, we have too much to talk about. Thank you. What does success as a streamer look to you now? And is it different from when you started?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah. Um, I would say success to me is building many different pillars of content outside of streaming. So like I feel like I'm very confident in my ability to be an entertainer and a streamer. I've I've demonstrated that I can keep people in my stream. It's it's growing. I'm very, very proud of that. But I really do believe that streaming is a very short-lived career because like anything could happen, you know. Just dance could like make a tweet about something controversial, and then everyone under that umbrella is screwed, and then nobody wants to watch it anymore. Or like I might do something and get canceled, um, which I have made, unfortunately, uh two viral moments. One of them was twith, and the other one was not twith, and that was a bad viral moment. And it was like, oh, I never want to wish this on anybody. Um, so be careful what you tweet. But I I feel like with that being said, you never know like when you need to take a break. You never know when you can't be live. So my goal moving forward is to try to build up my offline social media platform. So when I made the leap to full time, I immediately opened a Patreon because the cut is better. So I started to encourage like my loyal like viewers, like, hey, if you want to support me, downgrade your tier three and just pay for a Patreon like thing because I get 92% of your dollar. And even if I had the partner like plus point, like level two, that's only 70-30. So it's like I'd rather get 92% of your dollar. And there's no bullshit either. It's like Patreon's pretty straightforward with like its payment, and like it's you know, it's it's a very established platform. And they get more perks too, because like you could set that. So I built that up and I offer exclusivity like through that platform, but I also started a YouTube channel where I play um story-based games, and that again was kind of to support the variety arc of me, so that if I need to take a break, like I still have content going on because I can sit and play a video game offline. I might not be able to stream for five hours one day, but it's it's very easy to just yap and play a game for two hours and just put it up on YouTube. So I'm hoping that my vision will manifest into something bigger because that's what success is for me, is like I just have different avenues to focus on if like parts of my life, you know, need me to prioritize like other things.

Patty 37:51

The part of you know, having uh the multiple income sources for anyone that freelances really is the most important. But yeah, that's really nice. You know, taking care of yourself first and planning for the future is really nice. Is there anything about building a community

Community management, moderation, and boundaries

Patty 38:09

that you wished you knew when you started?

SPEAKER_01 38:12

There's like two things that come to mind. One is like being really careful with who you choose to be like a moderator or like be at least like in a leadership position, because they are a direct representation of you and they set the tone for the community. So, like I've had like probably like one bad mod experience, and thankfully it was like when I was much smaller, and it was just like it was tough because I was friends with this person, and it was causing kind of like a rift with my community because they didn't like him, and he also didn't follow the rules, so I I had to like put on like my bad cop hat on and be like, dude, you can't do that. And it was it was awkward because it's like it was my friend, but like he also like thought he could be above like my rules, and I'm like, no, you can't do that. So I had to like unmod him and like I haven't talked to them since that, so I lost a friend over it. That was during a time where I was really small, and people didn't understand I was that serious about streaming because like they were just like whatever, you're just playing games online, you're just like a small person. I'm like, no, like I have a vision, and like you have to set that early on, like those boundaries and those foundations, and yeah, it's not big now, but you can't just like build that when you're big, like it's it starts small and then it grows into that, which again comes back to why when the twith thing happened, uh, I feel like most people would probably be like capitalize on that, you know. You have a spotlight on you. So I chose to do the opposite, and I did not go live that week because I knew it was gonna be an influx of people in the community. And I wanted people who actually cared about me to funnel in um if like by just like clicking to my channel. Like I don't know how to explain this better, but like basically if I was live, they could come and be like, oh my god, this whole this moment happened. But I didn't think that would be beneficial to our community, so I stayed offline. So I stayed offline until it died down, and then anybody left over, I kind of was able to put together that like you followed me offline and came back like after it's died down. So now I feel like you actually care about us, if that makes sense.

Patty 40:33

Yeah, they they had that extra curiosity, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

I just like totally went on a tangent. So uh mods, that was the first one. And the second thing I could think of that I've learned my lesson from is I overshare a lot. I really overshare so much of my life, and this has been a recent realization. I've been calling it a growing pain where I've had to kind of reassess how much I share on my streams because there's a lot more people around, and I feel like sometimes things can just be said, you know, offline or it doesn't have to be said at all. And uh it's been challenging for me because I love to yap and I love to share everything, but I'm learning that not everything has to be shared because at the end of the day, like people are there to be entertained, so like I don't know. I just feel like I don't want to keep answering the same things over and over again, so it's it's just like a lot of management. So you don't have to share everything, is basically what I'm learning.

Patty 41:39

Just just think about if you worked in an office, would you say it to the that group of people? I feel like it's pretty much the same.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, it's not even so much what I'm saying, it's also just like it's nobody's business sometimes. Cause like I started to realize like if I overshare, people get would really get curious, and then it kind of turned into something that it was fixated on. And I'm like, we don't need to talk about this. I was just like a really random thought. So it's like I'm now trying to think ahead of like if I say this, what will happen? You know, is this a is this adding anything to the stream?

Patty 42:14

Yeah, it can also be very stressful. What about uh quitting? Have

Overcoming periods of doubt and feeling stuck

Patty 42:18

you ever thought this isn't for you? Like, not just a rough day or a week, like completely giving up.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Yeah, legit. Um April 2024, that was when I was at the St. Jude Summit for the first time. I was legitimately thinking of quitting. Like I was I had gone into that week thinking, I'm gonna go to the summit and then I'm gonna quit when I get back. I'm gonna fundraise for St. Jude in May and then I'm gonna quit because I just felt like I wasn't seeing any results and I was burnt out, I was tired. You know, things that people don't talk about with stuff like this, you know, it was adding strain to my relationships because I was putting so much time and effort into streaming, plus I was working. I legitimately haven't seen my like IRL friends for like years. I I feel like I lost I lost friends along the way because I was so serious about it that I really had a moment of like, is this really worth my time if people are leaving my life? So I actually was going to quit in April. And then when I went to the summit, um, they had a speaker there who uh he was sharing his journey, you know, with St. Jude and everything. And he was just a very, very motivational and inspirational person, and basically saying that everyone has a purpose and your purpose is here, and like we need you to inspire people. I'm gonna fucking cry. We need you to inspire people to keep going to fight for cancer and to like encourage them to like you know, donate or like to raise money, and like that just changed my perspective on things because I just felt like I was so selfish going into. It being like, I'm not growing, I'm putting all this effort on not growing. That like I was like, there are people literally dying, and they need us to use our voices to like get the mission out. That I was like, okay, I'll keep going. And I went up to him afterwards and I like said thank you. Like I almost quit. And then like he just he hugged me and like told me all these really nice things about how I was, you know, how um I have a purpose and everything. And like I just cried. This the stranger, I just cried in this over six months. But like it's weird because after that I came back and then I hit partner like the month after. So it was just like a really strange time, but was like sometimes you need to go down in order to go up, you know? Yeah, like I was really good at it. I know I was really close. I and I kept telling I told a couple people too. I was like, guys, when I get back, I'm I'm just gonna stop streaming. And they're like, what the fuck? We had no clue. Like, I was like, Yeah, I'm really tired. Like, I just I can't do it anymore. And then I it just he just recreated my purpose, he just reaffirmed it. So I I think about that a lot.

Patty 45:11

So if you if you had to say something

Recognizing the impact of your content beyond metrics

Patty 45:14

to someone that was like in your situation, because you had that moment because you you did the charity and whatnot, but there's a lot of people that don't do that. What would you say to someone that feels like stuck like that, like disappointed with a lack of growth?

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Um, I'm gonna cry again. Uh basically, you don't know whose lives you've touched. I think as a creator, you get we get sometimes so boggled down by performance and comparison and analytics that like we forget that like we connect people with each other and we connect to people. And it's like you just really never know who whose lives you're gonna touch and how much you mean to them. Kind of sounds parasocial, but like there are plenty of times where I've had people come back and said, and like after like a break, and they're like, I had to take a break, but I just want to let you know that you really pushed me through like this moment of my life or something like that, or like you helped me during a really hard time, or like you gave me a lot of inspiration. Um, just dance in particular was so surprising to find out that like a lot of people were encouraged to try it because they they always wanted to, but they never had the push. But like seeing somebody do it like me for the first time, like they felt inspired to do it. So it's cheesy, but like you never know who's watching and whose lives you're touching. So even if you're feeling low, just think of that. And somebody you're making somebody out there smile, no matter how big or something.

Patty 46:39

If you have some amount of viewers, you know, they're they're there for a reason. So you're doing something right.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

They don't need to be talking, you know, they could just be listening. They might not be able to talk, they might only be able to listen. So don't ever, I guess, uh write off like lurkers because they are there and they you are making a difference.

Patty 47:01

Okay, before I make you cry more, yeah. Is there something that

Curating intentional virality and growth strategies

Patty 47:10

you think we didn't touch that you would like our listeners to know?

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Yeah, actually, I want to go back to the twith moment um of like when it went viral. So, like a lot of people think that virality is luck, and I do think it is luck, but I think it's luck plus knowing like when to jump onto something, like being prepared. So the viral moment didn't just happen because the clip happened and then everyone started talking about it. The viral moment happened because I recognized it as an opportunity to be a viral moment. So I took the clip and then based off of my analytics on Twitter, which at the time was available for everybody, um, I was able to be like, okay, the most active times that people are, you know, looking at my posts are between these time frames. So I took the clip and then I basically marketed it intentionally to be like in a way that people would find it easy to read, then they can access it and then they can share it. So that all was like my creation. I it sounds so like conceited, but like I think it's it's tough to explain to people that virality can be curated. So that whole weekend, like that was what the clip like people were talking about the clip, and that only happened because I decided to tweet it at an optimal time. And I hate to say this, I paid for Twitter blue. So not only did I have an extra boost, it was just like I've done that in certain times to be like, I know this is a banger thing, I'm gonna boost it. So use that to your advantage if you want to grow. It is totally okay to do that, but you cannot sit there and expect it to happen for you. No one is gonna do that for you. Like, you need to know when to take advantage of something and when to recognize something is gonna be like a blow-up moment, and sometimes it won't be, but at least you tried. Like you at least tried to make it happen, and that was a moment where I was like, I know this is gonna be something that people are gonna talk about. So that's one thing I like to share because a lot of people just think it just happened, like, and I did nothing, you know?

Patty 49:15

Yeah, it's always like being able to recognize when uh something has the potential to be viral and try to use it as best you can to put it in front of as many people you can and see if it grows from there.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

And it doesn't have to be a viral moment, you can still have a lot of impressions with this method. It's virality probably is one of the more rare things that could come from it because it is hard to you know mimic something that grand. Like, and that's where clip farmers come and you know, people are faking the content. So that moment just felt like a this is a really true, genuine, viral moment that I feel like I should try to push. But the the method works for anything, honestly. So it's uh probably my last bit of content advice that I want to share with people.

Patty 50:04

This was great. I love this conversation, a

Where to find Kelley & recommendation

Patty 50:07

lot of like very variety and uh good insights.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Move us so fast.

Patty 50:14

Uh why don't you tell our listeners where they can find you?

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Okay. Um, so again, I'm Hero Carrie uh or Kelly. I am on Twitch as Hero Carrie, actually, everywhere is Hero Carrie, except on YouTube. You can find me as Carrie Plays, where I play first uh time blind playthroughs of story-based games. Um, and I stream five times a week.

Patty 50:36

So come on by one last question that I ask everyone. If I could have any streamer on the podcast, who would you like to see having a conversation like this?

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Oh, oh, it's a great one. Um I feel like it'd be cool to ask the Dynamite twins. Uh, they are IRL streamers from New York. Um, they helped shape a lot of my business sense because they are very brilliant, but also they're like IRL like wizards. So it would be really interesting to hear from them because they're not specifically gaming. So you get another perspective on what it's like to be a content creator on Twitch.

Patty 51:17

They're super fun. This is very interesting because you, a gamer, recommended me an IRL streamer, and the IRL streamer that I had recommended me a game streamer.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Wait, that's so funny. Well, that's good though, because like in my opinion, like, you know, I guess one question that didn't get touched is like, how do you avoid burnout, or like how do you like overcome burnout? And I usually tell people go outside your niche, like go outside whatever you're consuming and go find somebody that you just wouldn't have watched or you know, you're not normally used to and just learn from them because I think it helps you see different perspectives and you can learn something different, you know, outside your normal niche.

Patty 51:55

Yeah, thank you so much for being here.

Outro & credits

Patty 51:57

You're right, it just went super fast.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Yeah, I'm glad. Thanks for having me.

Patty 52:02

And thank you to all our listeners at home. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to give us a follow. Follows are free. You can find the growth rate wherever Pods are cast. We'll see you again next week. Bye. The growth raid was created, posted, edited, and produced by me. If you like the show, feel free to rate it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That really helps a lot. And don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you would like to listen at free and see all of this episode, join us on Patreon at patreon.com slash thegrowth raid. We also have a Twitter, blue guy, and Instagram at the Growth Rate. And if you know a streamer about having a share, leave your recommendation.