Wendy Liu, BESc/HBA ’13, has built an online following of thousands for her quick and easy sewing lessons.
My mom taught me to sew when I was growing up. It was all about making clothes for Barbie dolls!
Then I didn’t do anything with it for years. When I was in the HBA program, some of my friends said they thought I would be a really good TV host. That got me thinking about YouTube. One summer I was really broke, so I decided to do a sewing project, create a video of it, and put it up on the Internet.
The few people who found it had really nice things to say, so I kept doing
it. Then another YouTuber, a beauty guru, mentioned my channel and suddenly I had thousands of female teens subscribing. I started to focus stylistically on things that fit that demographic.
One thing I learned early on is not to try too hard to make everything perfect. It’s scary to put the real you out there, flaws and all, but it’s important on YouTube, and perhaps in business too. You have to be willing to admit when you make a mistake, and to take a more adventurous and carefree attitude.
It takes a while to produce a tutorial because it’s just me and I have to keep moving the camera so that viewers can see what I’m doing. I can do a tutorial in a weekend, if I start early on Saturday and work late.
Last year I made a scarf for a friend and he started texting me every time someone paid him a compliment about it. One week he texted me every day! So I created an online shop and sold about 70. This year I put some effort into creating a commercial and building a site. I had lots of orders, but at the same time it was a good lesson in setting priorities. I realized that keeping the videos going was more important than merchandising.
My work at LoyaltyOne focuses on the AIR MILES® collector experience for millennials, which is perfect because I have daily interactions with the target age group. I’m not sure what the next step is, but I do know that I want to keep uploading videos and building my audience.
Check out Liu’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/withwendy
Photo: Nation Wong
Art Direction: Greg Salmela, Aegis
