I think people see subbing to a small channel as buying a game when it is still in alpha. They'll watch it, they'll check it out, but they won't commit just yet. The way I see it is:
1) Take time, be patient, it will grow as long as you put your time into it
2) Put all your effort into one video, make is amazing, show it to everyone, post it on all social medias, get your friends spreading it, and work towards getting it to go viral. It is much harder to do than to say, but if you pull it off, all your videos will benefit, and your channel will grow quite a bit.