monetising

In general, when is a good time to? I'd assume when you rack up a good amount of fans (1k-ish?) I post some pretty low quality content so I know I'm not going anywhere soon lol. (my excuse is that I don't have the right equipment.) When did you guys start?

Plain and simple - what the title says. I find it interesting to see how much each video is "earning" but I have heard it is more likely to hurt a new channel. So I was wondering when did you guys decide to pick it up? Cheers