A New Adventure Begins

Life after YouTube

I. A New Chapter

Ten years ago this month I teamed up with my brother Alex to create a YouTube travel show we called Vagabrothers. A decade later, that crazy dream has evolved into a community of over 1 million curious minds from virtually every country on earth.

But all journeys must come to an end, and the pandemic formed a natural bookend to that project. After a two-year hiatus from YouTube, I’m proud to announce a new chapter of my creative career.

I’m relaunching The Missive newsletter on Substack, where it will become my digital home for all of my creative expression.

In this post, I’m going to share some context around my decision to move from YouTube to Substack, what to expect from me in the coming months, and a glimpse of what I’m hoping to build together with you. 

I invite you to read on and join me on the journey.

II. Why I’m Switching Platforms

I want to start by thanking everyone who made Vagabrothers the success that it was. Not just to my brother Alex for helping me build something that neither of us could have built on our own. But also to the countless people who supported our journey.  

My intention with Vagabrothers was to bring together people from diverse cultures through our shared curiosity about the world. And when I read through the countless comments from our subscribers thanking us for inspiring them to set off on their own journeys, I feel an immense sense of pride that I completed my original mission. 

But when the pandemic made travel vlogging impossible, my brother and I arrived at a crossroads and decided to take different paths. And while my brother went straight into starting a new YouTube channel and documenting his move to New Zealand, I really struggled to figure out what came next for me.

I saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to step away from social media and reassess my life. After 12 years of traveling the world and documenting my life online, I realized I was posting less because I wanted to and more out of a sense of fear of being dropped by the algorithms if I took even the slightest break.

But I needed a break more than anything - so I took the risk. 

I turned off my phone, put down my camera, and picked up my pen. I tuned out the noise of social media in order to reconnect with my inner artist. And when I did, I finally heard the voice of my heart screaming for me to make a change.

Before YouTube, you were a writer, it told me. Get back to writing.

I started writing every day. I cleared my schedule and adjusted my lifestyle to prioritize artistic creation. I stopped making content and started trying to make art. I ignored the performance of posts and focused on the joy of creation. I stopped worrying about engagement and started focusing on alignment.

This process eventually manifested in Cuentame, the monthly live storytelling event I founded here in Mexico City to get back to what I love most - bringing people together through stories. And I deliberately chose to keep the event purely offline, despite numerous requests from my audience to live stream the event. 

The concept resonated with others and the crowd grew each month. There was something about the simple act of sharing stories in a private space that provided something we couldn’t find on social media. A place where we could be real without having to be perfect or suffer the abuse of trolls.

I had uncovered something special and I wanted to share it with my online audience. But I didn’t know how to replicate the magic I was building offline.  

Until now.

That’s why I’m moving to Substack - to create an online version of this private, supportive space where storytelling can thrive.

III. Why It Matters

Ten years ago, YouTube was a new and dynamic platform and digital video was disrupting the entire media world. By contrast, the publishing industry was collapsing and it was a hard time to start a career as a writer.

After four years of freelancing articles and writing guidebooks, I was struggling to make ends meet. But YouTube offered monetization that made it a viable business.

I am forever grateful to YouTube for helping me find an audience that resonated with my message, but I’ve also come up against the severe limitations of building a career on social media platforms:

• Social media platforms are mediated by algorithms that stand between you (the audience) and me (the creator). I might spend weeks working hard on a video that won’t be seen by more than 10% of my supporters. But with Substack, you’re guaranteed to get my best work delivered straight into your inbox. 

• The business model is broken. Platforms like Instagram pay creators little to nothing for making your favorite entertainment while perfecting their algorithms to keep you hooked so they can sell your attention to advertisers. These platforms are “free” because you are the product being sold. Meanwhile, creators must take on branded content deals just to keep the lights on.

• Creators live in a constant state of precarity, knowing that they could lose everything they’ve built with a single change in the algorithm. Quantity trumps quality in order to feed the insatiable appetite of the algorithms for content. The fear of being dropped by the algorithm dominates the creative process - ultimately sacrificing the quality of work produced.

Today, platforms like Substack feel as exciting as YouTube did a decade ago. While I do intend to post occasionally to YouTube, I’m shifting my focus to Substack because:

• I want a more direct connection with you. I no longer have to worry about my work reaching a million viewers to make ends meet. Instead, I can focus on serving my “1,000 true fans” who truly believe in what I do. 

• I want to experiment as an artist. Yes, I’ve got a lot of writing to share with you. But Substack also allows me to play with audio and video, and I’m excited to start sharing my stories in new and novel ways. Because I no longer have to focus on making every video go viral, I can take more risks creatively. 

• I want to expand my scope. Travel has always been a cornerstone of my life. But it’s also a niche that has started to feel very limiting. While everything I create will always have a global perspective, I want to expand beyond travel recommendations and into deeper and more nuanced conversations.

• I want to build a community. Let’s transcend the one-way flow from creator to fan and start creating content together. It’s really easy to comment on everything I post to Substack, which means you can become part of what I’m creating and enrich our conversation with your own contributions. 

• I want to focus on what I do best. Paid subscriptions allow me to have a recurring monthly income that empowers me to invest in my greatest passion projects rather than having to follow trends and take on sponsorships deals. That means more of my best work made for the people who appreciate it most.

If you’re already subscribed to The Missive, you’ll continue to receive my monthly posts for free. And because Substack allows me to have both a free and a paid version of this newsletter, I’ll be able to invest more resources into all of my platforms. 

But paid subscribers will unlock an additional tier of access, including the following.

IV. What You’re Supporting 

By paying for a subscription to The Missive, you are investing in my evolution as an artist and supporting a new business model that allows creators to build sustainable careers with the direct support of those who appreciate our work the most - you. 

In particular, your direct support is helping me take on a long-form project very central to my heart - my very first book. 

This is the fulfillment of my long-time dream of making a living off my writing.

And as I shift my focus from social media to the written word, The Missive will become a place of multi-media experimentation that allows me to grow as an artist - and for you to support that evolution directly. 

Your existing free subscription will include:

• A written version of story from Cuéntame, the monthly storytelling event I host in Mexico City. While the event will remain offline, I will share a written version of my story on The Missive (plus a video recording for paid subscribers)

• Curated discussions around my favorite topics - travel, reading and watching recommendations, and the latest from world events

• Book Club Recommendations as well as what to watch and listen to this month

• Travel recommendations from both Mexico City and beyond

• Announcements on the progress of my book, private tours in Mexico City, and upcoming workshops so you can stay in up to date with my latest endeavors.

My work will remain free but Substack also allows me to create another tier for paid subscribers who want to support my creativity and get additional access.

This is where I will finally have a place to bring to life the many passion projects that didn’t really work on social media - from my monthly book club to co-creating projects together and allowing more direct interactions between me and my audience. 

Additional benefits for paid subscribers that will grant you additional access to my creative process while also supporting my evolution as an artist. Benefits include: 

• Celestial Navigation, a weekly series in which I sift through my dozens of handwritten journals to pick out material for my memoir and discuss the significance of each moment in my journey. 

• Video recordings of my monthly story from Cuéntame so you can be part of the show and get a sneak peak into how I put together my stories. 

• Book Club Zoom Meetings to discuss the book of the month - including chats with authors (when possible)

• Subscribers-only videos responding to your direct questions and reading early drafts of my new material

• Good karma for supporting one of our favorite creators on his journey ; )

V. Thank You For Subscribing

Whether you stick with the free version or choose to become a paying subscriber, I hope you’ll join me on this creative journey of experimentation.

Over the next month, I’ll be releasing free samples of what will later become subscribers-only posts, including:

• The debut installment of Celestial Navigation, in which I read the first journal entry of my very first journal upon graduating college and moving to India.

• An audio recording of my story from last month’s Cuéntame for the theme “The Longest Day of my Life” about riding a motorbike across Vietnam.

• A travel-themed “Ask-Me-Anything” to help you plan your summer travels

• A video of me reading of an early spoken-word poem I once performed at Shakespeare & Co Book Shop in Paris’ Latin Quarter

I hope that you will choose to sign up for a paid subscription, but either way you will continue to receive the free version each month.

Once again, thank you to everyone who’s joined me thus far. I’m ready to start writing a new chapter. And I hope you’ll come with me on the journey.

- Marko