I made $9K from my YouTube channel in 2022 and it's powering my company
Sharing some stats around my medium-sized YouTube channel and how it helped me start a semi-successful business. IMO this pattern of YouTubers using their distribution to build companies will become increasingly common, so I hope this is a helpful data point!
I run a channel designed to help software engineers grow their career. I started 2022 with 26K subscribers and ended with 71K. Here's a graph of my subscribers vs revenue each year (I started 3 years ago):
Some highlights from 2022:
- I made $9,020 with a CPM of $12.91 and RPM of $3.60
- I had 2.6M views across all my videos
- My best month was November, when I made $100+/day for several weeks
- My worst month was July, when I made < $10/day.
YouTube has been instrumental in growing a community/mentorship business I started in the middle of 2022, Taro. The vast majority of paying customers initially discovered us through YouTube, and this income stream is how I'm able to make a livable income ($100K+ booked in 4 months).
For those of you thinking about something similar, here's why I'm bullish on YouTube as the basis for many consumer products:
- You don't need to spend (waste?) time vetting sponsors and haggling over terms.
- You can build a much deeper relationship with your audience if you bring them off YouTube.
- Depending on your audience, their willingness to pay can be very high if you deliver a unique product.
Let me know if you have any questions, happy to share more details!
Congrats man keep up your good work!
thanks @Benfrederick !!
You're doing good work bro. If you have a good following and they believe in you then you can get a good result but in some cases it took time.
Wishes for your future success!
thanks @buckyjames!
Content marketing is an expression of the freemium paradigm.
You bottleneck demand by nurturing leads with free content. No paying for ads because you have thousands of warm leads who trust you.
Yes, Taro is great product for software engineers. Learning a lot and hopefully will get premium subscription in coming days.
would love to have you @arslans171
Very helpful, inspiring stuff! I have an education channel that's smaller than yours (I teach about finance for startups), but I hope to break through to the next level in 2023.
I have a question - what is your strategy around thumbnails, titles, and video intros? How do you come up with them and do you have any rules/guidelines? Yours are awesome.
What do you think catapulted your channel to grow so quickly?
Funny you say that, I don't think my channel has grown that quickly :P
It's all relative I suppose, I'm comparing myself to YouTubers who went from 0 to 100K subs in less than a year.
I've definitely iterated a lot on thumbnails, script, and editing in the past year. I try very hard to make my videos very "dense" with information. And I think the cringe thumbnails are effective, assuming you deliver the value you promise.
It has grown super quickly! For a niche topic, you are crushing it.
Interesting about the cringe thumbnails, I've been very hesitant to try them, but I think it is time ;)
Will be studying your channel and cheering as you hit 100K and then 200K!
Wow, that's amazing! Congratulations on the success of your YouTube channel and how it's fueling your business. It's inspiring to see how content creation can have such a tangible impact. It's a testament to your hard work and dedication. Keep up the great work! I'd love to hear more about how you've grown your channel and the strategies you've used to monetize it.
Hello @rpandey1234,
I recently launched a blog where I interview successful content creators and share their journeys: www.tubespotter.com
I would love to feature your story, as it inspired me to create that blog. Would you be interested in sharing your YouTuber story and how you’ve started your channel?
If so, please let me know and I will send you more details.
Inspiring! Really appreciate this post and wish you continued success!
Thanks for sharing Rahul! What are your thoughts on having Patreon memberships? Since you don't seem to have one, is it perhaps not a good fit for your type of content?
Also do you worry about copyright strikes when using assets in your videos? I just started my youtube channel 5 weeks ago, and I feel like I spend more time than most youtubers thinking about copyright.
I've thought about Patreon, but I don't think it'll be a meaningful amount. I'd rather spend that time/energy on growing Taro :)
Congrats! Rookie question: how do you actually start a YT channel ? Sounds awfully hard, but maybe you have useful insights :)
The main insight is to realize that the best way to get better is to crank out videos :) Focus on quantity over quality to start.
Cool, any suggestions to make video editing less painful or even actually enjoyable ?
It fascinating to read about ur experience with ur YouTube channel and how it helped u launch a semi-successful business. It's clear that u worked hard to grow ur channel over the last three years, and it's great to see that ur efforts have paid off. It's also worth noting that YouTube, by allowing creators to build a deeper relationship with their audience, can be a powerful tool for building a community and mentorship business. I also agree with u that YouTube is a great starting point for many consumer products because it allows creators to avoid spending time vetting sponsors and negotiating terms, as well as depending on the audience.
Keep up the good work rahul !!!!
thank you!
I love it, great work Rahul. It's very insightful and inspirational.
My co-founder and I showcase insightful founder stories on our website Founderoo.co Have a look at some of our founder stories and let me know if you're open to sharing your story too.
P.S. Taro would resonate with a lot of our readers too.
Let's do it! Feel free to DM me at @rpandey1234 on Twitter and we can make it happen
Awesome, I'll message you now 👌
Congrats, keep up the good work.
thank you @smartgirlcredit 🙏🏽
Youtube is underrated...SHHH don't spill the secret!!😜 just kidding hehe.
If anyone else listens to All-in podcast, David Friedberg predicted that content creation will be the key to entrepreneurship in consumer facing products in the future. Just look at all the influencers now creating formidable product companies of their own (mr beast burgers, kim kardashian skims etc).
Btw I'm a fan of your channel Rahul, you put out great stuff.
Thanks so much @lynnnerd8 -- that All-In podcast episode was so good, I remember rewinding that portion about creators to listen to it again
Very interesting. Being a content creator gives you so much leverage.
and the good thing is that there's no barrier to entry to becoming a creator -- just start
This is what very few people understand. There are a group of YouTubers with just a couple thousand subscribers making millions. Millions, not from YouTube but from a separate business they run. These people just use YT for marketing/customer acquisition. Thanks for sharing a live example of this!
i hope we get to millions as well :)
Super helpful for the people community!
Thanks for sharing Rahul.
Helpful, thx!
Great inspiring story
Thanks for sharing! 🔥 Cool to see how simple your backgrounds are sometimes. I constantly feel like I don't have the perfect set up but it looks like if there's true value delivered, people will tolerate your background. I need to crank out more content asap! :)
Depends on the niche, but I'd say 99% of YouTubers spend way too much time thinking about their home studio, their lighting, their background.
Just start publishing!
Insightful. Thanks for sharing. I made a couple of Udemy courses in the past, and I am thinking of starting teaching mobile app development again on Youtube. This is encouraging.
most people I know who make meaningful money from course sales have a decent YouTube following
I actually made a video about this idea :) https://youtu.be/KY-L6CoMDEw
I also think Youtube is a best platform to educate people about a product and let them know what your product can do better than the other.
I definitely think YouTube is far more valuable than a follower on TikTok, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
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