- If you had 10,000 subscribers, no money,
bills stacking up and brand new,
real-life responsibilities rolling
into your life, do you think that would be a good time
to try going full-time on YouTube?
Probably not.
And we also wouldn't encourage you
because at that point in your life, it sounds
like going full-time on YouTube would be a massive risk.
Well, today you're gonna meet a creator
who took the risk anyway.
Canadian Guy A played the hand
that he was dealt and went all in on YouTube.
I thought I would bring the story
to you today because I thought it would be helpful.
After my conversation with Canadian Guy,
I am now looking at full-time content creation YouTube
through a whole new lens.
Let's start though from the beginning.
Canadian Guy knew
from a young age that his passion was in video editing.
His talents were recognized by his teachers at school
and he even went to college specifically
for video editing and that's where he met his wife.
So you could say at this point, things were looking up.
- After I met my wife, within a three-month span,
I was about to graduate
and then we were gonna get married right
around the same time.
And then before I even graduated,
I got accepted at a local job to do animation editing.
I felt like I was on cloud nine for a whole year.
It was like, wow, you know, I graduated,
I got my lifetime job, here we go.
And then reality set in.
A year later, I got laid off.
- He lost his job and this was just the first time.
Keep watching 'cause it won't be the last.
And this raises a very important concern
because a lot of people working regular jobs have to worry
about being laid off for reasons beyond their control.
And now at this point,
Canadian Guy was going through that very experience.
- I quickly learned that in the editing industry,
people jumped from job to job to job to job
all over the place.
And I was like, wow, I really don't like that.
I like being able to set my roots and be like, okay,
here's where I work and that's it.
- Real world job instability is one
of the big reasons why a lot
of people look to carve out their own ways
of making money and potentially become their own employers.
That's why we always encourage creators who want
to monetize their channels to start treating their channels
like a business from day one.
So with the loss of this job,
Canadian Guy needed a distraction.
- I entered a bit of a steep depression.
I was really sad.
I was like, wow, this just blows.
I thought I failed.
I thought I didn't do good enough.
And there was all this self-doubt.
And so what had happened was earlier that year,
they had announced that Crash Bandicoot was coming back
with the "N Sane Trilogy."
And I remember playing Crash N Sane, and I thought, hey,
you know what would be cool?
Let's do a review.
- Whether he knew it or not at this point,
this is the moment where Canadian Guy started looking
at his channel like it was a business.
This is because he noticed he was doing something
that holds a lot of creators back.
- I had fiddled with YouTube for seven years
at this point with just my anime music videos,
random gameplay clips that I would play.
It was a mess.
It was an absolute mishmash of just garbage.
That's the best way to describe it.
- He had been posting videos without any kind
of specific focus or a particular audience in mind.
So he sat down and realized,
this is probably about where I need to pick a niche.
Now, that niche was the comeback
of a very nostalgic game, which was Crash Bandicoot.
But instead of just focusing on one game,
he ended up focusing on one audience
because there was another game that not a lot
of people were talking about, and that was "Spyro,"
which has a very similar audience
if you don't know anything about these games.
- When you're tapping into this untapped potential,
all this new content that no one's really talking about
but there are people interested
and that was the key is that people are interested
but they don't know that they're interested yet.
They were interested in Crash and Spyro.
You know, they're on YouTube,
and all of a sudden they get suggested Spyro the Dragon
and it triggers that nostalgia.
But then you go through my videos, you're like, oh,
he talks about Crash.
I remember playing Crash too.
- The audience he's focusing down on is very specific
but not too specific
to where there's not still some potential
because hundreds of thousands of people
have played these games.
The videos Canadian Guy wanted to make
were really gonna play into people's nostalgia
for these old games that were being remade.
So after figuring all this out, he posts this new video
and then something happened
that might feel all too relatable.
- I remember there was the moment that I knew
that there was something there, I posted it
and at the end of the day, it had 12 views.
(crickets chirping)
And I remember being really depressed
because I worked really hard on that video.
I did research, I scripted, I edited
and I made sure I did everything that I could
and it only got 12 views.
And I was really like, ah, that that sucks, right?
That feels bad.
- I know there's probably so many
of you out there that have experienced this.
I have myself.
You put in so much time into a video
and then virtually nobody sees it.
(film beeping) (playful music)
But maybe you'll feel encouraged by this
because having a video that didn't perform up
to expectations, Canadian Guy wanted
to try something a little bit different to see
if he could give it a boost.
- I had another idea where it was like,
why don't you maybe throw it on social media somewhere?
And I didn't wanna do Facebook.
I wanted actual people that were interested.
So I decided to go to ye olde Reddit, and I found
that there was a Spyro Reddit, and I thought, all right,
I'll post a video there and leave it at that.
- It's a good he did because after a few days,
the video got over 1,000 views and comments and engagement
were starting to come in.
Even cooler than that,
this experience had attracted two other creators,
also kind of smaller channels who were also interested
in Crash Bandicoot and Spyro.
The three creators began chatting
and they started to trade information
about the potential return of Spyro,
which is something they were all kind of curious about
and thinking this could happen one day.
The three of them all went to different socials
and started posting their content
and kept trying to build that hype.
Not only did this experience indeed build the hype
but it also built a community
and building that really solid community
of people who are all kind
of thinking the same thing is super important
for going full-time on YouTube.
We'll get back to that in a moment, but Canadian Guy,
at this stage in the journey has 5,000 subscribers,
and if you remember, he was laid off, so all
of this was going on without him actually having a job.
But one day at around 5,000 subscribers,
he gets that call to come back to work.
However, he had learned from his mistakes the last time
and while he had this job,
and was putting in the hours at work,
he still found time to keep building up
his presence on YouTube.
So this is all going on for a while, and one day he wakes up
because his phone is just exploding.
It turns out all of this hype that he and other creators
were trying to build around the potential return
of Spyro had come true because details leaked
about a new Spyro game.
And while that alone as a fan of the game was exciting
in itself, something else really awesome happened.
- What had happened was was that my channel
was already established
in the keywords Spyro remastered and Spyro remaster.
So when that trailer dropped and people were looking
for information, the first channel
that was coming up was mine.
- The seeds he had sown were starting to sprout.
His older content was now ranking in search
because of this new trend.
He knew that this was something he had
to leverage right now.
So the goal? Make as much content as possible.
The problem?
He has a full-time job and a family to support.
With his work schedule keeping him
from making a proper video,
he decided to pivot a little bit.
- So I did livestream reporting on it live, and I remember
as I was talking about it, the viewers started at like 27
and then 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 3, 500 people were watching.
- He adapted and he tried making a new style
of content he wasn't used to making.
That decision though meant
that he was one of the first creators to start reporting
on this news in real time.
This livestream introduces him to a whole new audience
and a new revenue stream because when you're live,
you can get things like Super Chats,
and this is a topic where it's really easy to make a lot
of content because he was super passionate about these games
and before he knew it, he had hit 10,000 subscribers.
So things are great,
he's got a new job, his wife is pregnant
and they've just moved into a larger place.
But then real life strikes again.
Canadian Guy gets laid off
from his job a second time with a baby due in just two days.
So no job and now no money
because they had just spent everything moving
into this new place.
And if all of that wasn't bad enough,
one day out for a drive, their car gets totaled.
I honestly don't think there's a movie written
in such a way where the main character
has like all of these struggles pile on all at once.
The audience would just walk out
because it wouldn't be seen as realistic.
- We hit a fight or flight situation
where we're like doom was very much looming.
We felt very much like, this is it.
This is like, we're done, we're toasted.
My wife said, "What about YouTube?"
And I said, "You think we can do it?"
We only have 10,000 subscribers.
I've never heard of that before, where they can say,
yeah, I can pay my bills with 10,000 subs.
- Despite everything going on,
Canadian Guy stuck with it.
He doubled down on what was already working
and he took time to experiment with new types
of content that he felt like his audience might enjoy.
Today he has over 70,000 subscribers
with YouTube remaining his primary source
of income and the stakes for Canadian Guy
throughout this whole experience were really high.
His family had grown
and his bills had gone up quite significantly
since when he first started YouTube.
He took a risk and it paid off.
But it's really important to note
that that risk was not taken
without a lot of confidence on his end.
If you look at his channel,
it's clear to see that once Canadian Guys started
to take his content really seriously,
he didn't stop doing that.
He didn't deviate and he didn't mess around.
I feel you guys would find it pretty cool that this level
of independence could be achieved
with only 10,000 subscribers.
It goes to show that if you can take YouTube seriously
and follow your passions, build a real community,
you don't have to wait till 100,000 subscribers
before giving this your full attention.
But listen, it's still not going to be easy.
YouTube takes a lot of time to achieve real growth
and that's why we made this video right here.
Let's see if we can get you past that hurdle
and maybe get you your first 10,000 subscribers.