When to quit your real job for YouTube?

Markeeb11

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Good morning all,

I've been here before with a previous channel I had a couple of years ago. Due to work commitments I had to drop it, it wasn't that successful.

However, due to my new job I fell into something I loved doing not only in my work but as a hobby too which I turned into YouTube channel.

It's gone pretty well since March 2019 when I started, I had a video which got hugely suggested and gained a lot of subscribers. I didn't jump on what was happening at the time and it peaked and died out until I committed again at the start of this year, I post pretty much daily content and with my life, "real job" and YouTube it can be draining and not sure I can sustain all indefinitely.

However, it's built a community around it which I love, I want this as a business but I don't trust YouTube, if I did trust them I could quit now, post more videos and double my real work wage perhaps even more with putting extra time into SEO and social media, streaming etc

I'm trying to utilise the membership system and Patreon which again are great but I wouldn't earn enough to really keep me going.

What do I do? Do I risk quitting my real job and put all my effort into yt?

Are network partnerships viable if YouTube did decide to remove my partnership for any reason?

My real job:
I work as a content creator for a company, I have no degrees in what I do, no proper training. I got into content creation teaching myself. I'm certainly no professional but I can certainly work with the whole Adobe suite, Pr, Ae, Ps, Dn, Id and Ai and some 3d programs. I say this because I consider my self incredibly fortunate to have my job, however over time I'm starting to lose the passion for it. I've built their youtube channels with new videos, web images, product packaging, manuals for their products and more.
I couldn't see myself walking into another content creator position due to my lack of college/uni training, and let's not forget Covid, surely I'm just lucky to have a job at this point?

My channel:
Approaching 50k subs and around a million views a month.


I hope any of this doesn't come across as bragging or anything, I just wanted to be open with my situation and get some outside perspective.

Thank you for your time!
 
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MyLumoLife

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Firstly, congrats on the subs/views. Very inspirational.

The way I see it, quit your job when you earn at least as much money from YT as your regular job.

For example, let's say in your real job you earn $18/hour, and you work 8hr/day (5 days/week) and YT pays $1/1000 views.

That means each working day you need 18K views/hour for 8 hours (total of 144K views), or 6000 views/per hour spread over 24 hours. This needs to happen for 5 days/week, and obviously you will get even more views during weekends (icing on the cake).

But, if you could work part-time/casual for your real job (which would give you plenty of extra time to work on your videos) AND earn full-time money from YouTube...dream come true. So if YT algorithm changes and all of a sudden your views/subs disappear, you still have a real job to fall back on.
 
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Markeeb11

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Thanks for the reply. Yes currently YT doubles my "real" work wage and I'm sure I could increase that further with more time on SEO and videos.

It's just always that worry that one day YT could end it without warning as I've seen it multiple times.
 

MyLumoLife

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I've seen people quit their job when they reach 200K-300K subs. I think 50K is too low to be quitting your job. By the time you reach 200K, your brand is relatively well known and the high subs is a stronger indication that people like you content. If I was in your position, I would be patient and wait 6-12 months to build up the subs and brand. :)
 

Jack Decker

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A few things to consider:

1) YouTube is a VERY unstable revenue stream. I've been advised by many full-time YouTubers to NEVER depend on it. Treat it more like a bonus but not a salary.

2) While Patreon and SubscribeStar are relatively reliable, they generally don't generate enough to live on. There are exceptions. Political and religious channels can make a killing with them.

3) Is there a product you can sell to your viewers? Ideally a consumable that they will then buy from you again and again. Possibly even a subscription service that has you send them stuff every month. T-shirts, mugs, and such do produce sales but they are usually one-time purchases.

4) Time to bring in the pros. Look into hiring YouTube helpers. Never consider one that doesn't have a successful YouTube channel themselves. I would suggest you look into Tim Schmoyer ("Video Creators"), Roberto Blake, Darrel Eves, and Sean Cannell ("Video Influencers"). With 50K subs, you're not daydreaming. You're already on your way and these guys can help you get to the next level. Of the four, I'd recommend Tim as he already has a mentoring system that you can join. Google search "Video Creators" and that will get you his homepage. Then click on the "Certified YouTube Consulting" tab and check it out.

Good luck!
 

Ezrider92356

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With the ups and downs of YouTube id want to see a income that I could live off after overhead for atleast a year stockpile your YouTube earnings for that year so you have a years worth of savings before making the jump.

Personally i would want to see over 100k subs before I even considered it.
 
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wchap001

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Good morning all,

I've been here before with a previous channel I had a couple of years ago. Due to work commitments I had to drop it, it wasn't that successful.

However, due to my new job I fell into something I loved doing not only in my work but as a hobby too which I turned into YouTube channel.

It's gone pretty well since March 2019 when I started, I had a video which got hugely suggested and gained a lot of subscribers. I didn't jump on what was happening at the time and it peaked and died out until I committed again at the start of this year, I post pretty much daily content and with my life, "real job" and YouTube it can be draining and not sure I can sustain all indefinitely.

However, it's built a community around it which I love, I want this as a business but I don't trust YouTube, if I did trust them I could quit now, post more videos and double my real work wage perhaps even more with putting extra time into SEO and social media, streaming etc

I'm trying to utilise the membership system and Patreon which again are great but I wouldn't earn enough to really keep me going.

What do I do? Do I risk quitting my real job and put all my effort into yt?

Are network partnerships viable if YouTube did decide to remove my partnership for any reason?

My real job:
I work as a content creator for a company, I have no degrees in what I do, no proper training. I got into content creation teaching myself. I'm certainly no professional but I can certainly work with the whole Adobe suite, Pr, Ae, Ps, Dn, Id and Ai and some 3d programs. I say this because I consider my self incredibly fortunate to have my job, however over time I'm starting to lose the passion for it. I've built their youtube channels with new videos, web images, product packaging, manuals for their products and more.
I couldn't see myself walking into another content creator position due to my lack of college/uni training, and let's not forget Covid, surely I'm just lucky to have a job at this point?

My channel:
Approaching 50k subs and around a million views a month.


I hope any of this doesn't come across as bragging or anything, I just wanted to be open with my situation and get some outside perspective.

Thank you for your time!

I get paid pretty decent on YT for what it is, but not enough to support my life. I would not quit my career honestly for this unless you are big up there like bigdawsTV, Markiplier and SSSniperwolf. even then, they dont depend on ad revenue, they depend on other sources. I have 2.7k subs but I get 100k - 300k views a month and if I were to compare that to 1mill views a month, I most likely would think its 4x the amount of what I make on YT, that definitely wont support rent and food alone. But then again, I do this as a hobby and not really a career. I never understood how people quit their jobs to go FT on youtube with under 500k subs. unless you are vanlife or living full time in an RV. I do have enough to live in an RV off of youtube now, but I would be scrapping for change. Not to mention how unstable it is. I was doing great for 2 months now my revenue has dropped quite a bit. could be my last 2 or 3 videos didnt hit 1000+ views.

one of my buddies have over 250k subs and he says he does not even make enough to support his lifestyle, so he does have another part time job and lives in a small apartment. For me, although I have a career that pays well, this is more of a hobby/side hustle that I do for fun. Thats just my opinion and my advice, take it as you will. At the end its your life. Good luck!
 

Ezrider92356

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I get paid pretty decent on YT for what it is, but not enough to support my life. I would not quit my career honestly for this unless you are big up there like bigdawsTV, Markiplier and SSSniperwolf. even then, they dont depend on ad revenue, they depend on other sources. I have 2.7k subs but I get 100k - 300k views a month and if I were to compare that to 1mill views a month, I most likely would think its 4x the amount of what I make on YT, that definitely wont support rent and food alone. But then again, I do this as a hobby and not really a career. I never understood how people quit their jobs to go FT on youtube with under 500k subs. unless you are vanlife or living full time in an RV. I do have enough to live in an RV off of youtube now, but I would be scrapping for change. Not to mention how unstable it is. I was doing great for 2 months now my revenue has dropped quite a bit. could be my last 2 or 3 videos didnt hit 1000+ views.

one of my buddies have over 250k subs and he says he does not even make enough to support his lifestyle, so he does have another part time job and lives in a small apartment. For me, although I have a career that pays well, this is more of a hobby/side hustle that I do for fun. Thats just my opinion and my advice, take it as you will. At the end its your life. Good luck!
yeah thats just the thing is views almost don't matter because ad rates fluctuate so much. earlier this summer ad rates sucked for me i had a month that i did over 750k views and made $800 in ad revenue. last month i only did about 250k views and made $1500.

so 1 million views at last months ad rates would probably be enough to live on but it wouldn't be when ad rates are down. i think it would be possible to make the switch at less than 500k subs but you would want to have enough cash reserves to carry you threw the low income months.
 

wchap001

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yeah thats just the thing is views almost don't matter because ad rates fluctuate so much. earlier this summer ad rates sucked for me i had a month that i did over 750k views and made $800 in ad revenue. last month i only did about 250k views and made $1500.

so 1 million views at last months ad rates would probably be enough to live on but it wouldn't be when ad rates are down. i think it would be possible to make the switch at less than 500k subs but you would want to have enough cash reserves to carry you threw the low income months.
Just a heads up, you shouldn't post your numbers here because it can get your YT acct demonetized if someone were to report. Its technically "against" YT policy. Just watching out for your hard work ;)

But yep! exactly this! I also think the bigger you are the better ads you get on your channel so thats a good thing also. And last month like you said was a good month but dropped a good amount this month sadly. The other thing would be the unknown for the future 10/15 yrs from now who knows what ads will pay or if that alone, YT gets changed quite a bit. My biggest fear is YT can get so greedy and take even a bigger chunk of our profits. Then they will miss out on all of that work experience if things get bad for YT for their resume.
 

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I would probably consider it if I started to make money close to the level I do at my day job. But most likely only if I had multiple streams of income since it would feel pretty risky with just the adsense money since you never know when YouTubes rules will change or just the add rates could crash. But if we only look at Adsense it would be with around 3.8 million views/month based on the salary from my day job, last years avg CPM of $1.36 (yeah I know that my niche sucks) and a ruff estimate of 42% tax. That would give me around $3k/month after tax.

Now of course when you reach 1M+ views/month you should be able to make a money from other things than Adsense alone which would make the number of views needed lower.