why I walked away from millions to be a youtuber

So one year ago I walked away from a multi-million dollar earn out to become a youtuber and since then I have uploaded a long form video every week and a short video every day with a few pretty large exceptions but I've never really talked publicly about why I did that or you know what's really the plan for this channel so I wanted to make this video to discuss you know what I've learned so far some of the hardest lessons along the way and why I do all this and what the plans are moving forward. so for you to have good context i want to share my story briefly which is basically you know for the last 17 years i have been an entrepreneur i started my first business when i was 17 and my goal that entire time was to find a way to build a business that i could one day either sell or earn enough money from to live my dream life and my dream life was basically i want to travel the world have multiple homes you know be married to an awesome woman get to bless others and friends i've tried a bunch of different businesses along the way But my last business, a business called Prodigy, is the one that got me there. We basically built the online checkout for car dealerships. And from 2015 to 2021, I grew that from just an idea that like me and my friend Marty coded on my couch to a software platform that was selling a billion dollars of cars every quarter. And we sold that in 2021 to a public company called Upstart. for $110 million. And the way that that money breaks down, it's a little different for everyone. But for me as the founder and CEO, part of that $110 million was structured in what's called an earn out. And for me, the way that math worked was I had to stay three years. The first year one and year two were pretty interesting from a monetary standpoint. But year three was the hammer. It was when I'd get my biggest payout and it was in the millions. So I was pretty excited about that. And when I first joined uh upstart you know post acquisition i was like they're gonna have to drag me out in handcuffs for me to leave before year three like there's no way i'm not sticking around for year three uh but then a few strange things started happening um which ultimately led me to starting this youtube channel um you know at the time i was living in new york city i encountered this weird thing where i met a lot of really, really wealthy people, like way wealthier than me, way beyond me, talking hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars. But a lot of them were still really unhappy. And I started to recognize this pattern, which was basically, you know, they got to where they were becoming wildly successful because they had a primary question driving their lives. And that was, how can I make more money? And when you don't have money, that is a very good question. I don't want to be this sort of like, hi in the sky, money doesn't matter. This world does in many ways run on money and having money enables you to actually experience much more of this world. But at a certain point, the value gained from incremental money doesn't really change your life that much. And so I started looking for a better question to ask myself and a better question to run my life. And that question became, how can I One, just find more joy and happiness. Like what can I do to find the most joy and happiness in my life? And then secondly, how can I have the most impact in this life? Like I'm in a really fortunate position financially, just from the success in my age and the energy that I have, how can I use that to actually bless others and have an impact in this world? And that's when the idea of becoming a YouTuber started to like really take hold of my life. You know, I've actually always been obsessed with the platform of YouTube and of making videos. You know, I uploaded my first video to YouTube in 2006. I'll play a little bit of it here and it's full 240p glory. It's hard to find those videos because they're not under my real name, but I mean, I've been uploading videos from, you know, my martial arts days, from traveling with my wife really for the last 18 years. But those were always videos that sort of... I didn't talk in them. They didn't really feature me. They were more about like me as a cinematographer capturing interesting moments. And I never thought of myself, one, as worthy of having anything to share. And the second thing was I never thought of myself as having the personality to actually be a YouTuber. You know, if you look at a lot of the big YouTubers, they have these big personalities and they're so wild and fun. And I'm like, I'm a bit more of an introvert. I'm a bit more shy. I'm not like this big personality on camera. But there were two people that actually... really influenced me on this journey. One was Alex Ramosi and just sort of seeing what he was doing with the platform. For me, watching Alex on YouTube, and I'm sure there's others before him, but he was one of the first people that I was like, I think he's actually a legitimate entrepreneur who is really leaning hard on his platform in a way that he's just trying to share insights. And obviously he has a full business model behind this and everything else, but it was just really inspiring to sort of see the work that he was putting in. And then Ali Abdaal, who's a totally different human than Alex in every way, but also sort of just this guy that was really real, raw, authentic, a bit more introverted actually, but still making amazing videos. And I don't know, something about watching their videos made me think, maybe I can start a channel and do this. And I think the big, you know, sort of lever for me that really pushed me over the edge on being on YouTube is I also spent the last couple of years mentoring startups and I was helping these founders sort of deal with the early challenges, you know, how to get product market fit, how to find your first customers, how to raise capital. And I loved doing that. It's so rewarding to help other founders along the way. But the thing that would sort of not frustrate me, but like sort of definitely wear me out is it's often the same talk. Like you can meet with 10 founders and you might only encounter three problems. So you're teaching each founder one by one how to solve the same problem. And I was like, man, if I could just find a way to scale this knowledge that I feel very fortunate to have and share with others, that'd be amazing. And so, you know, YouTube is sort of that way that I've found the best way for me to have impact and try to mentor others at scale. It's one of the reasons that like a lot of people DM me and say like, hey, can I pay you for a one-on-one call? Can I pay you for mentorship? And I try not to do those things. And certainly in the last, you know, since I started YouTube, I've taken absolutely zero, you know, paid gigs or mentorship or anything because I'm just trying to do it in a way that is applicable to everyone, especially people who can't afford to pay me. You know, the rate that I would charge for one-on-one mentorship is astronomical. And I'd rather just do it for free on YouTube. And, you know, one other thing that I think is interesting about maybe my channel and my background. is you know what i've seen from most finance youtubers and business youtubers is they usually have a business and as they're you know running paid ads and looking into ways to acquire customers they want to get on youtube because they're like this is a good business opportunity it's a way to drive qualified leads and to increase our funnel and things like that um i don't have a business like i just do this because i love youtube so i would say You know, more than me being like a business person on YouTube, I'm just a guy who loves making videos. And there's a true passion in doing this. And you'll certainly see that as I go to the next section of this video, which is talking about actually the finances behind this channel, like how much we spend, how much we've made and things like that. So let me just run you through the numbers. And I'm going to look at my screen here because I don't want to screw up any of the numbers because there's a lot of them. So. Since we've launched the channel, I've filmed 48 long-form videos that have actually been uploaded. So it's roughly one per week with a couple exceptions and 335 shorts. So it's a lot of content. As far as like expenses and how we spend like money to actually make these videos, the camera that I'm filming out that I'm looking at right now is a Sony A1. That sucker is 6,500 bucks. And I think the lens on it is it's a 35 1.4. I think it was like $500. So call that seven grand. The B cam over here is a Sony a7C. I paid $2,000 for that. And then the lens is a Sigma 85 1.4. I think that was like another $850 or $1,000. So like just the two cameras alone, we're looking at, you know, a little over $10,000. But I already had those. Because I am a passionate sort of videographer, so I won't count those as my expenses. But outside of that, we have bought a lot of other things. So the gear, like the lights, this mic, things like that. I have spent so far $2,651 on gear to make these videos. Alongside that, I had to buy software. So I spent $231 on software. Online services like B-roll, video templates, royalty-free music. We're up to $1,263. I've also paid for some coaching and consulting to try to be a better YouTuber. So that comes in at $1,316. And then courses, I've spent $2,148 on courses. All of those expenses are before we go to editing expenses. And as of now, I spent about $14,513 on editing. I haven't actually added all those up yet. I don't know what the total is. But suffice to say, it's a non-zero amount of money that we're spending on these videos. So then the question is like, okay, but how much have you made? Maybe it's way more than that and you're super profitable. I'm maybe proud or ashamed to say that total revenue for the channel has been, to date, $1,037.42. So I don't know the math on that, but it's probably like a... you know, $18,000 loss or something. And, you know, part of that's just because I wasn't sure if I wanted to monetize the channel at all. But then, you know, meeting different YouTubers, they were like, hey, YouTube's going to run ads on your videos no matter what. So you might as well, like, tell YouTube if you're going to run ads, I want to get paid for them. So that's what we do. We have no sponsors. There's no courses. There's no community. There's no upsell here. Like, the only pitiful revenue that comes in is the AdSense. And you know, a lot of that actually came from a recent video that we uploaded. I think like $800 of that is from one video. So there is sort of this path to like, if we keep uploading good videos, I could see the AdSense revenue sort of hitting breakeven. Those are the numbers. They're not like super glamorizing or anything. And a lot of people, you know, sort of rightly so are like, well, why are you doing this? Why are you like actually losing money making these videos? You know, I think it's... it's a hard thing to explain but i'll try to give you guys a metaphor that makes sense which is you know a lot of my friends after they sell companies they they try to find a way to spend money that makes them more fulfilled more happy so that can be going on vacations which we certainly do a lot of um but it's also you know hiring they have tennis coaches or they have personal trainers and things like that and no one thinks like my friends who have tennis coaches and maybe pay a thousand, two thousand dollars a month for like world-class tennis coaches. None of my friends think that they are going to go win Wimbledon. They know that it is a hobby, but it brings them fulfillment, keeps them active. You know, it's a good thing to do. And so that's the way that they spend their money. For me, you know, I love making dope videos. I love trying to help you guys and share what I've learned along the way. So I don't look at the money that I spend as money that's lost. I am very selfishly getting good things on that money spent i'm getting happiness i'm getting joy i'm getting fulfillment and if you can spend money and do something you love and get fulfillment from it like i don't think that's money wasted at all so i don't really mind the money that i spend it's just a part of doing this thing and i understand that i could do it for way less like i could be editing the videos myself and keeping this thing super streamlined but one i want to make super high quality videos and two I have a certain lifestyle. Like me and my wife, we do travel a lot. I think in my first, not even full time, but like first year as a YouTuber, we probably spent at least four or five months traveling, probably like 10, 12 countries or so. So, you know, we're living our lives and able to do this. Part of the spend is just enabling that. But, you know, I have had some interesting early lessons on YouTube that I also want to share. You know, the first is that success. in life does not equate to success on youtube that's sort of obvious but i think coming into the channel i was i had hopes that like you know people would recognize like oh this is a real founder who's like really built a real business and therefore the stuff he's sharing is more legitimate than maybe some of the stuff you see online has more value or is really helpful and that just actually wasn't the case like early on my videos did really really poorly like 50 views 20 views and i'd still make them every week and still spend the money on editing and everything else launch 50 views and i think you know probably six months into the journey i think we had like maybe a thousand or two thousand views maybe like 200 subscribers i could pull the numbers but like it's not much more than 200 subscribers you know i think a lot of people would have been tempted to give up certainly and i shouldn't phrase it that way because i was actually really tempted to give up not because I had certain expectations, but it sort of reaffirmed some of your self-doubts. Like, you know what? Maybe I'm not that guy that people want to listen to. I don't have the charismatic personality. I don't have that it factor. And so maybe this just isn't for me. But what was cool is I had committed to just doing this for two years, no matter what. And my rationale was, worst case, I spend a bunch of money, I make a bunch of videos, share a bunch of really good stuff. And if it doesn't take off, I will at least have this body of work over two years of like 100 videos that I've made that I can at least point people to that can maybe help them along their journey. I didn't think it was going to be like a waste but I was I was definitely struck by like how hard it is to win on this platform. The other thing that sort of bothered me early on was I would look at videos from people that I would say just if you really looked at their background like they were talking about things that they have no business talking about like how to make a million dollars and they're still like living at home with their parents or maybe they're renting an airbnb to flex on you on camera but they haven't actually really built a real business and those videos often do really well and the the thing that i had to accept and learn is that there is a a real skill in making good videos that people like, that people subscribe to, that people watch and enjoy. And it's not the same as the skill of building a business. And so on this journey, I was starting from scratch. I've never made videos like this before. And so I had to say, you know what, my videos, the reason they're not doing well is just because I'm not good enough. And so I have to keep improving and working my videos. Certainly once we started doing that, videos started doing better. And I just look at the views as like every view is someone that could really benefit from this. So for me, there's no like specific goal but it is really encouraging to see the views and the subs come in because it means to me like we're reaching more people and you know along the way some of my some of my proudest moments are one just like sticking with it I think anytime you start from zero or build a new business or anything there's so much glamour around just like how easy it is and how fun it is and the reality is man this this is a grind like anything else but it's a grind that I'm enjoying but it's it's It can be frustrating to work really hard on a video only to watch it totally flop. Yeah, I am just really proud that we're still doing this and that we get to keep making awesome videos to help you guys. And I would say the biggest thing that motivates me is the comments that people leave. We get comments all the time where people are like, hey man, this really changed my life or wow, I'm so glad that someone's just speaking honestly, speaking truthfully and making something to actually... to help me those comments actually really like fill my soul and and get me charged up to film videos like this on the other hand we do you know i do get hate comments and um you know early on actually the hate comments really bothered me because i was just like man like you're like you i look at their their like user profiles and like you've done nothing like you've uploaded nothing you have no real uh business or anything to like even criticize me about And yet you're here like saying I'm either a fake guru or I'm a scam or something like that. And over time I've realized like those hateful comments come from a place of hurt actually. Like they have been misled by someone else in this platform or they have tried and failed and are really upset. Like they're clearly clicking my videos because they want something but they just they have too many mental blocks. I do blame. some of the YouTubers and other people on this platform for doing that. But I also like, these people need to take a look at themselves and say like, hey, maybe leaving hateful comments is not the path forward. I don't know how other YouTubers deal with it, but like for me, I actually just leave the hate comments on my videos. I generally don't respond to them unless they're just like spreading actual lies. Then I'll just try to like correct them so other people aren't misled. But if they're just saying like, you suck, scammer. lucky whatever like i kind of just leave them um i do like hope one day that we have a big enough audience that like know enough my background to actually reply to those comments and like sort of set them straight but um i just leave them and you know honestly for every hate comment i probably get like 20 to 50 really positive heartwarming comments so that's what keeps me going And, you know, a couple other things I'm really proud of along this journey. One is, you know, we hit 10K subs by New Year's Eve. That was really cool. Like we sort of six months in, like 200 subs. And then, you know, yeah, it started really building December. And I was telling my wife, like, I hope we hit 10,000. I think we actually, you know, January 1st, like crossed 10,600. And I was like, that's amazing. And now just a couple of weeks later, we're almost at 15,000. So you're starting to see like. this wave started to form on what we're doing here. And I think it's just really cool, the community that we're building. And along the way, I've been really surprised by the sophistication in you guys. A lot of YouTubers that make videos like this, they have an audience where it's like 0.1% of the people watching have even started a side hustle or a business. And the last survey that I did was roughly half of you, 50%. have either started a side hustle or started a business. And that's just really encouraging to me to say like, these are people that are in the trenches actually doing things that are watching my videos. And so I know that like you're benefiting from this because you're in the trenches and I'm trying to sort of share some wisdom along the way. And along this journey, I've also met some really cool YouTubers and other influencers. Like I had the opportunity to meet Ali Abdaal and chat with him. And obviously he's like a legend and one of my heroes. So that was really cool just to sort of like learn from him. And then I was on the phone I think last week with this incredible guy named Michael. He's a dancer. He's got like 60 million followers across different platforms. Probably like six or seven million on YouTube alone. And so just like meeting these different, you know, from large stars like them to even, you know, friends that are, you know, 100,000, 200,000 subs. It's been really cool to sort of like immerse myself in this community the same way that when i wanted to be a startup ceo i surrounded myself with founders and ceos i'm now starting to to meet different creators and it's just really cool um to learn from them and be inspired by them so maybe to wrap this video up i want to talk about some of my hopes for the channel moving forward and first off if you're still here like thank you for watching this video i hope it's been insightful or interesting um i fully know like this is a video that is not going to go viral it's not going to be a video that um you know really brings the channel to new heights but i hope it's a video that at least if you're following what we're doing here if you're enjoying the content you can kind of see a difference out of me learn a bit about me and um understand like where this channel is going so the number one hope and what i really want to do here is just keep making awesome content to teach everything that changed my life and the lessons i've learned to you guys like but along that journey there are a few things that I'd like to either change or introduce. You know, one of them is trying to bring more of my entire life into the lessons that I share with you guys. You know, making money is like, it's actually, it's a big part of my life, but it's still like, it's one of the pillars. I also have things on like personal health, the marriage. Me and my wife have been married for almost five years now. How to build great community. We travel a lot and I haven't really done any videos on like, I guess on travel or things like that. So I want to sort of bring what I would consider more of my authentic self into this platform. And what I really, you know, my hope is to basically say like, listen, I grew up poor with nothing. Here's where I'm at today. I get to travel the world, live off our investments, make cool videos, married my dream wife, like the whole nine yards. I have everything I've ever dreamed of. And here's how I did it in case this lifestyle and this stuff that I've achieved is appealing to you. That's like if I had to summarize the video, I just want to share how I got to where I'm at and hopefully help you guys do the same. So that's like the main hope for this channel. And again, I think I've only been sort of spending most of my time on the money stuff. So I do want to try to introduce. more of these other aspects of my life into the lessons that I share here. Another thing that I want to do, I mentioned sort of like, you know, some of the big YouTubers that I've gotten to meet, but I also hang out with like wildly successful people, whether it's multimillionaires or billionaires. And I've never like brought a camera to our lunch to, you know, record that or hang out on camera, but I do want to find a way to bring other really cool people that I know in my life. onto this platform a lot of them it's not that they actually would be opposed to it they just they're not going to sit down and make videos like this but there's so much you can learn from some of these people i don't know what the format is for that yet but whether it's you know hanging out with lunch with them going for a drive and just like filming it i want to start to bring in some other really cool people and share the lessons that i've learned from them and just that they can benefit you guys. Anyways, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate you guys. Every like, every comment, every subscription really motivates me. I'm just really grateful for you. If for some reason you haven't seen my best video yet, by the way, it's basically I break down the entire process on how to make your first million dollars. I'll also put the link over here. It's now over 100,000 views. It's by far my best video. So check it out and I hope it helps.

Watch this next: https://youtu.be/y5ks4FhoGfQ

If you're new here my name's Michia (Muh-ky-uh). I'm a serial entrepreneur and investor. Since selling my last startup for 9 figures, I'm investing my own money into the next wave of founders at my VC firm, L7V. 

I'm sharing everything I learn here so subscribe and stick around.