This as-told-to essay is predicated on a dialog with Quentin Latham, a 40-year-old accountant turned YouTuber from Miami. It has been edited for size and readability.
I run the YouTube leisure information channel Funky Dineva, however I began my profession as an accountant after graduating in 2005 with an economics diploma.
I labored my manner as much as a management position as a senior accountant and stayed till 2011. Early on, I spotted that I hated it.
Now, as a YouTuber, I introduced in over $500,000 final 12 months by way of content material creation alone. I am by no means going again to accounting.
I at all times imagined myself as a company go-getter
I at all times thought I wished an enormous nook workplace, to win awards at my job, and to go to black-tie affairs.
As soon as I entered the workforce, the considered doing that for the remainder of my working life chipped away at my soul. I’ve a inventive persona, and I discovered the routine and confinement of accounting to be painful and insufferable.
My boss may inform I used to be sad and underperforming. I used to be fired in February 2011.
With solely unemployment advantages coming in and no main cash saved, I may not afford my house, so I began scaling again my life-style. My fraternity brother was gracious sufficient to let me crash on his flooring whereas I figured issues out.
I had a YouTube channel that I made a decision to start out taking critically
I made a decision that transferring ahead, I’d do what’s genuine to me: leisure. I used to be already spending hours on social media indulging in what was taking place on actuality TV and within the superstar world, so I knew I may make content material about it.
I launched my YouTube channel in December 2010 however did not begin treating it like a job till I used to be out of accounting. I created content material round issues like the Montgomery Riverfront brawl and Kanye West operating for President. Individuals appeared to love it, and my subscriber rely grew.
Six months into specializing in YouTube, I obtained a name from Mona Scott Younger and VH1 to seem on the primary “Love & Hip Hop Atlanta” reunion. I interviewed members of the solid backstage, and the content material was used as digital belongings for the model on its web site. The response was unimaginable, and my following stored rising.
I now have 432,000 subscribers on YouTube. The majority of my income comes from views on movies and stay streams. I submit 5 to 9 movies and work roughly 10-15 hours per week.
I exceeded my accounting earnings inside 1 12 months
After my first 12 months on YouTube, my earnings exceeded $70,000, which is what I used to be being paid at my final accounting gig. I used to be in a position to get my very own house and regain complete self-sufficiency.
Initially, I knew nothing about monetary planning for enterprise house owners or the sources out there, similar to enterprise credit score. I employed a CPA to assist construction my enterprise and file my tax returns. My 2017 tax returns revealed I had made $230,000, and I used to be shocked as a result of I nonetheless felt comparatively broke.
I spotted I used to be spending the cash as rapidly because it was coming in, and I wanted to regroup and begin saving and investing. I obtained the whole lot on monitor. Final 12 months, I made $523,000.
YouTube has zero boundaries to entry
It prices nothing to undergo a trial-and-error interval on YouTube. You do not even want a digital camera — I solely used an iPhone or iPad for my first few years.
As a podcast or present creator, your principal focus is producing good content material in your area of interest. I recommend becoming a member of a neighborhood community-based group that gives assist to content material creators to construct up your abilities.
You can even rent an intern. School college students at all times search related expertise so as to add to their résumé. Contact the mass communication and advertising departments of a faculty close to you, or you will discover somebody nearly by looking out on LinkedIn or Upwork.
When all else fails, Google is your good friend.
One mistake I made when launching my enterprise was solely creating perishable content material
I used to make movies on matters like Cardi B submitting for divorce from Offset after which canceling their divorce. I used to be trapped in a cycle the place I needed to prove content material rapidly and consistently versus my counterparts who have been doing evergreen materials. With evergreen content material, the knowledge will at all times be contemporary to whoever is consuming it. Since then, I’ve realized to create each.
My fast plans are to maneuver into the product house. I’ve additionally just lately began planning to open a content material creation studio the place different creators can entry audio and video gear to deliver their concepts to life.
Lengthy-term, I plan to remain present and hold my abilities sharp, so I am properly suited to maneuver in whichever manner leisure and popular culture reporting goes. My imaginative and prescient is to retire in radio as a result of you are able to do it till you are 90 — so long as your voice is not cracking.
