Gertrude Awino Njeri Juma or Miss Trudy is a Kenyan content creator doing travel vlogs and feature interviews.
She runs a YouTube channel boasting over 376,000 subscribers and 59.4 million cumulative views.
Before venturing into content creation, Miss Trudy was engaging in menial jobs in a bid to eke out a living for herself.
It was a trip to Ethiopia with her Ksh 25,000 savings that saw her launch a career on YouTube that has paid off years later.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
In an interview with with Dr King’ori on the Wicked Edition, Miss Trudy noted that jobs were scarce by the time she completed university.
The YouTuber noted that the available job at the time was working in a supermarket as a promoter for different brands.
However, she says that her end-goal was working as a merchandiser later.
“I had planned my life, I knew I was going to do promotions for a while and then I get promoted to be a merchandiser,” she said.
Miss Trudy noted that although she put effort in working towards the promotion, it never seemed to come her way.
However, while at it, she happened to sell products to her boss unknowingly, a move that cost her the promotion job.
“I wasn’t getting promoted for so long. One day, the owner of the company we were working for came into the supermarket. I didn’t know him, and I sold my products with my all. He was so impressed and offered me a promotion
“That Saturday I went to the office and in front of my colleagues, I was fired, although, initially I thought I would be promoted,” Miss Trudy said.
Following the job loss, Miss Trudy went into content creation and started doing vlogs which she would then upload on her YouTube channel.
She, however, noted that while starting off, she wasn’t sure of how to go about it, let alone the type of content to cover.
“I hadn’t figured myself out yet but as time went by, I just started showing my life and doing restaurant reviews. I never even thought of it, I just knew I loved doing it,” Miss Trudy said.
Miss Trudy explained that for a year, she made content on YouTube but she was not making any money out of it.
“After one year was when I heard that people can make money on YouTube after which I applied for monetization and received Ksh 10,000 as my first earnings,” she recalled.
Although she was initially happy in the beginning, with time, the earnings from YouTube seemed little but she was determined to soar higher.
“I didn’t see a big future but I loved it and something in me told me to keep going. It’s all about consistency, determination and giving yourself time,” she said.
With determination and the zeal to succeed in her newfound career, Miss Trudy rose to the point of making up to Ksh 1 million per month.
From YouTube, Miss Trudy was also able to bag herself a boyfriend, Ghanaian YouTuber and philanthropist, Wode Maya.
She noted that Maya approached her via Instagram and told her that she was flying to Kenya to create content.
However, by the time she checked the message, it was three months after he had visited Kenya for the same.
The two kept communicating and a month later, Maya invited her to accompany him to a trip to Ethiopia.
“Since I started working to that point, I had saved Ksh 40,000 which I used part of it to travel. That’s the best decision that I’ve ever made in my life because he just transformed my life,” she said.
