This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Lots of people ask how much money can you make on YouTube? Well, here is the true, accurate answer. Many people make $0. That is correct, $0, not so much. But you know what?
That's probably not the answer they're looking for when people ask that question. So I think the question that they want to ask is not just how much money can any random person make on YouTube, but for those who are able to really break through and become popular YouTubers with tons of followers, we all know those people or at least we've seen their videos, and high quality, frequent content. How much money can they make? Like what's the story with them? Well, there's one more factor I would add to that list.
Tons of followers, high quality, frequent content. What topic is the YouTuber focused on? Because someone who specializes in, I don't know, let's say national parks, for example, they're probably not gonna do as well, at least financially, as somebody with the same number of followers who focuses on exercise and wellness, for example, or something that's really closely associated with e-commerce. Another big field like that is personal finance, which if you think about it, it makes sense, right? It makes sense and it makes sense.
It also makes dollars. So, hey, welcome to Sidus Little School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. In today's story, I'll tell you about a former utility employee who's found something better. His YouTube channel brought in more than $300,000 last year, $300,000.
How did he do it? What is the YouTube channel? How can you go and learn all about it so you can see what he did for himself? All those details are coming up in this story right after this quick message from our sponsor. Stay tuned.
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In 2016, Ryan Scribner was working as a utility planner, earning a good salary. Although he was no fan of the nine to five life, he liked the paycheck and was investing to look after his future. Unfortunately, most of his colleagues weren't doing the same. In fact, he was shocked that many of them, who also had high salaries, were still living paycheck to paycheck. Ryan knew it wasn't a lack of intelligence driving these people to bad financial habits.
After all, many of them, like him, had advanced degrees. He knew it had to be something else. And after thinking about it, he became convinced it was due to a lack of knowledge. It's hard for people to do the right thing financially if they don't know what the right thing is. He began to think of ways to change that, to help people in a similar situation make smart financial decisions.
And eventually, he decided to start a YouTube channel. Now, this wasn't the first time Ryan had attempted to make a splash on YouTube, but in the past, those attempts had failed. And now, he thought he knew why. He spent too much time on planning, making sure everything was close to perfect before publishing, and perhaps most importantly, he didn't start with the right intentions. Previously, he'd always began with the idea to make money from the channel.
This time was different. He set out with the express purpose of helping people with hopes of a positive ROI in time, but money wasn't first. Promising himself he wouldn't overthink it, he launched the channel under his own name and began shooting videos with his phone in the front seat of his car. His first video was a 15-minute exploration into how young people can build credit. And it was not a viral hit.
In fact, very few people saw it. Ryan knew most YouTube success didn't happen overnight, so he kept posting more videos. In time, he increased the quality and filmed in front of a whiteboard in his home. He kept those original videos very broad and covered the basics, topics like stocks for beginners, how to invest in stocks, and what are bonds. What seemed like pretty boring topic ideas were created with a strong intent.
You see, Ryan was using basic SEO to create videos with titles he knew people would be searching for. By now, Ryan was not only enjoying creating the content, but felt like his videos were actually helpful. So he decided to invest a little money, $500, into some basic camera equipment and lighting. As the months went by, he kept producing more content and his views increased. Then in 2017, Ryan had his first viral video hit with a video entitled "How to Become a Millionaire" with $5 a day.
The title resonated and quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views. This video provided somewhat of a windfall via YouTube advertising. Once you reach a certain number of viewers, YouTube allows you to monetize your content with ads. The rate for those ads varies, but one average suggests that the right topic can bring in around $18 per 1,000 views. So for Ryan, that one video hit landed several thousand dollars in his pocket.
He decided it was time to invest in himself and take his channel full-time. So in mid-2017, roughly a year after launching, he quit his job to become a full-time YouTuber. The main thing he did after that was post regularly, sometimes multiple times per week. This kept his views climbing and subscribers growing. Also, by constantly targeting high-traffic keywords, more people would find him organically.
With this constant stream of views, Ryan began to expand and look for additional income streams, one of which was a beginner's guide to investing e-book, which he priced at $14. He posted links to it across all his videos, and the first sale came in during a night out at a concert. It wasn't just $14, it was a new revelation. For the first time, he realized he could make money directly from his own content, not just the ads that came from YouTube. He leveraged this knowledge over the next year, and soon, selling e-books and courses became a key part of Ryan's business, a business that is thriving in a truly impressive way.
Next up is building a new home studio, another investment, but one that seems justified, since the YouTube channel and his related product sales are earning well over $300,000 per year. [Music]
Well, not every YouTuber is gonna make a lot of money, in fact, most of them won't, but as this story shows, with the right topic, and here SEO was key, Ryan thought a lot about what people would be searching for, created those videos around those terms, which, as I said, personal finance is a really good market to go into for something like this, because the advertisers you're going to attract through YouTube's algorithmic process are going to be paying more than they would for other topics. So here's some advice from Ryan. He says, "Make sure this is really what you wanna do. "Creating content can be exhausting.
"It's better to leverage a large group of people "all creating content for you, "but that doesn't quite work on YouTube." So YouTube, it's hard to scale when you are a one-person operation. So focus on providing value, not earning money. When I started this side hustle, I had no plans of making money, I just wanted to help people. Now back to me, as I like to show you from time to time, it's possible to make money and help people, right? Which is, of course, exactly what he's doing now.
So I'm glad it's come full circle. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed this story. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to Ryan's channel, he's got more than one channel now, but his primary channel at least, plus anything else I mentioned in the episode will be at sidehustleschool.com/1508, 1508. If you've got a comment or question, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you'll come back tomorrow. Be sure you're subscribed. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from the Onward Project.
