5 Million Subscribers. Because of you.

Hey Patrons! As you may have seen elsewhere, Kurzgesagt reached 5 million subscribers recently. I wanted to write a few words to you about that but didn’t have a quiet moment until now.

So yeah. 5 million subscribers. It is slowly sinking in. You know… you guys are responsible for Kurzgesagt getting this far.

Kurzgesagt was very much my personal passion project after college. It made a loss for the first two years and it was a struggle to stay afloat. Working really unhealthy hours, freelancing while writing scripts and illustrating stuff whenever possible. By the end of the second year Patreon became a thing and we made an account. 

As the number of you guys grew things became easier. After a while Patreon created a sort of stability I did not know before. It was really what gave me the confidence to hire the first permanent team member. This completely changed the dynamic. He was a much better Illustrator than me, which made me a better illustrator too as I learned from him. The videos got more beautiful and we could make more. Time went on and the amount of Patrons grew. But we still did not have revenue streams to fall back to if things went wrong. 

Hiring still felt risky and scary. 

But again there was Patreon. Not only was this „free“ money that just came in each month, it also proved me that what we were doing was really important to a bunch of people. Important enough to throw money at us just for the sake of what we were doing. 

So I brought in a good friend of mine who helped me to build Kurzgesagt more into the business that is now. More secure and a better place to work at than ever before. This whole process in the last three years really felt like growing up. 

During this long and often scary process, you guys were good friends telling us that things will be ok and we should not worry. The funding you guys so generously gave to us was and continues to be a crucial part of our existence. 

Without your help here on Patreon I would never have dared to hire more people. Without your help we would not be able to up the quality as much as we did. Without you half the videos on the channel right now would not exist. Without you we would not have reached 5 million subscribers. 

Without you there might not be a "we" right now but still just me and my laptop. 

Thank you. 

This „milestone“ is your milestone too. There never passes a day where we are not aware of that. -Philipp