How Much Money I Make With 159K Subs | How Youtube Works #grindreel

I thought we would talk about what it's like to make it on YouTube and the first thing that you might be thinking is you haven't made a Josh because the title implies that you have and let me just be clear here I I haven't made it man I am a popcorn shrimp in a sea of content creators so like many of you guys before I started doing this for a living I was always wondering those questions like how much do they make what's it look like on the day-to-day imagine making videos for a living all you do is sit on your butt how do those sponsorships work you know can you imagine getting sponsored by this company just to talk about something for a second I feel like I'm an undercover agent and no one has recognized me yet and at any point here people grieve like you're a fake you're a fraud you're not entertaining enough how did you get to this amount of subscribers and views Josh like what what are you doing I don't feel like I deserve to be in this spotlight and I and I still very clearly can remember memeing with my friends on slack you like bro what do you think Peter McKinnon makes on like a six million view video you know how much money do you make on YouTube Josh well I'm pretty transparent person I don't really have anything to hide here I have made over the course of my lifetime of YouTube I've made fifty eight thousand dollars with thirty two thousand dollars of that money being in the last 90 days I actually have an excel sheet that I downloaded from my analytics where I can show you like the exact amounts that I made making two bucks five bucks four bucks three bucks and then here I was making like no money for a while like a couple pennies not even a penny and then I decided you know imma start making youtube videos again 30 cents to three dollars and then right here was when I put my job last year in September and so from there it went up to 15 they went up to 25 23 22 2015 and then in July I made fifteen thousand three hundred thirty-five that was when I made a few videos they a hundred thousand views Plus and then last month I made seven thousand eight hundred and then so far this month six thousand seven hundred dollars pretty much a lot of people think that is just overnight success but there's a whole lot where I made absolutely no dollars whatsoever like years and then all of a sudden it just exploded you know and you well what happened to to make those numbers explode Josh and like there's a certain amount of luck to it as I said in the last video but there's also a good amount of science to it and figuring out what works looks like I just got shoved into everybody's recommended you know like all of a sudden like I'm glad YouTube recommended me to you and it's like it took me so long to figure out how to make that work I don't know how these big huge creators do it over and over and over again where people consistently hit the algorithm like Jarvis Johnson for example like that dude makes a video easy million views easy algorithm and he doesn't have to work for like a like two months if you didn't want to anymore you know like that dude just has it down you can obviously repeat the same content that gets views with all the clickbait titles like realistic or you know not clickbait or gone wrong or cops called you know and like depending on the topic of your channel depends on the CPM so if you're getting millions of views and what you're doing it about garbage content you're probably your channels not going to be worth that much because advertisers not going to place like high priority ads on you people start to reach out to you and on YouTube there's this spot where you can have your business email link I think it's under the About tab on someone's channel page and they say hey are you interested what is the cost of an ad on your channel like 30 seconds or a dedicated video or sometimes there's like a middle management company which is like an influencer marketing company so companies go to that middle management company and the middle management company reaches out to you so whenever you do a sponsored video with one of these places you have to make the video submit the video they tell you if it's a good or not if it's not you have to redo it and so sometimes you're trying to get a video out and trying to stick to a schedule and going back and forth to these companies is time-consuming to say the least sponsored videos can actually be really stressful and so that's why you don't see them again that much on this channel because I'm very I guess I'm rich I'm just real picky you know it's kind of like if you've ever had a recruiter reach out to you for a job and they just throw something at the wall you're like what what and that happens a lot with sponsors but it's as crazy as you would think it would be you know like you're like can you imagine like 500 hours for 30 seconds like bro like it feels exactly like that just let me be clear here I'm not trying to like boast or brag or be like look at me look at my life look at all this stuff like how could you have a complain about that Josh here in such a some position you're absolutely right you you are right I'm very lucky to be here I'm very blessed to be here and I'm very appreciative and obviously I wouldn't be here if you guys weren't here to watch the channel like if I just wanna be here without you guys anyways so another thing that goes along with growing a YouTube channel is that you get a lot of emails and lots of dm's I get a lot of creeper teams they want to see my feet um a lot of people ask me if they can they can buy my underwear you know just just really weird stuff and then you have emails from people that are like hey I don't know questions or anything like that but thanks for being an inspiration thanks for thanks for keeping it off Tanya cuz I remember thinking that but I was too afraid to ever send emails to the creators because I figured they were too busy to respond I never want to be that guy so I try to respond to as many people as I can well you know the big streamers on twitch like shroud and dr. disrespect sometimes people donate like a hundred bucks and the streamer doesn't even see it and they don't even acknowledge it and they're like hey man it's my birthday just got this money from my grandma and the streamer doesn't even see the donation and it's like you can take your eyes off the screen for two seconds to say hey man thanks for that happy birthday you didn't have to give me that but appreciate you and like no they don't even acknowledge it and I know there's gonna be the people that say Josh you know that's not scalable you can't read everything no matter what but like people aren't giving $100 every two seconds people aren't giving that kind of money every two seconds and so when people come to my live streams I try to acknowledge everyone no matter what no matter what you don't have to donate for me to answer your questions and I understand that's not scalable and so if it seems like I'm being short with your question it's not it's just like I'm really trying to engage with everyone I don't want to just pull up a live stream and have my own agenda and just start talking and then glance at chat like thirty minutes later it's it's never anything personal if I don't get back to you it's just maybe I skipped it or I woke up and I looked at in the middle of the night and it was marked as red and then I didn't see it again like that that would happen more often than you think okay so moving past like all the DMS and all the emails and stuff you get networking opportunities it's really really weird when you DM somebody and they respond back now that you know would have just not even opened your message for example like the was it like last week I deemed tech lead a DM him on Instagram and he responded I was like hey dude I don't know how you consistently make these videos with this kind of view count like what what are you doing and he responded and then we had little chat and I was like that probably would never happened like eight months ago that would have never ever happened Yoma right like doody doody and me he's like bro that vid hit hard and I was like what Johnson mez dude I watched that dude's channel forever I watched that dude's channel when I was in Finland when I was married to that girl I remember pointing at his channel to my wife like look look at what he's doing right when he had like two thousand subs and then he watched my video and he commented on my video he's like good stuff man and I remember like I couldn't go to sleep that night because I was so excited and then I made another video I don't know a few months ago where I mentioned him he's like hey man just email me what some up I was like this would never happen this would never happen I feel like a fangirl okay I feel like a little fangirl with all these people that I used to watch talk to me maybe I could have messaged him earlier but I I never felt like I had anything to offer and I didn't feel like I could like I could bring them anything and I didn't want to waste their time you know because if you watch all these other people giving them tons and tons of money just for them to respond and I was like I should I don't want to have to do that I don't want to have to motivate them monetarily for them to respond to me I just want them to respond to me because they want to know me through that phase and watching these people that you like wouldn't give you the time of day not because they you know don't want to talk to you but just because when you are a creator and you're going through the phases and you think that you have something to offer so bad you know that you have value but you your subscribers and your views don't show it yet yet obviously from the other person's position you just look like you're trying to milk the other person's brand and that's kind of the salty thing about YouTube people want to work with you but you're not sure if you if you should work with them you know you're not sure if they just want to siphon off your traffic because you're what's hot right now or you're not sure if they just want to leverage your credibility or authenticity you're not sure they could have great meaning right they don't want anything out of you they just want they just want a chance to talk to you it's really hard to discern between them and so when you end up not getting responded to from these creators it makes sense you know because there's so many people that just want to leverage what they got going for themselves and that's kind of like the only thing really political about YouTube and so that's why I just kind of do my own thing if I were to do a collab you know I'm hoping to do collabs right there just needs to be like a real big mutual interest like I would like it to be where we both fangirl I meet them just like family you know starstruck and they meet me and they're starstruck them that sounds kind of douchey to say but you guys get what I mean you know like it would just have to be a mutual interest because we're both like super excited with what we do I just never thought that I would get to talk to the people that I watch because for me in my generation and for you guys and probably for your generation watching YouTube is like watching TV and so watching the people on YouTube and Instagram and social media those are the new celebrities right and so when they respond to you you're like wait what that's kind of what it feels like all the time when you've messaged somebody and somebody responds now I've never really DM denne of the people that I watch because they're outside of the the stuff that I make like camera gear stuff like like Peter McKinnon do is not gonna respond who's got like 5 million subs right Gary Vee who's not going to respond people pay him like $40,000 so you can sit down there for 20 minutes like he's not gonna he's not gonna give me any of his time for free so the people that I watch like you know like that are way up there still won't give me the time of day it's really easy to get salty about that I'm guilty of that because I got super salty when people didn't respond to big all right whatever I don't need you I'm not gonna I'm not gonna respond to them anyways it's fine you know I see it from their point of view and so I remember like you guys know forest night dude dude is the nicest guy you'd ever meet right and I remember looking at his channel like how does he do it this dude doesn't do anything his content is worthless you know dudes like the nicest guy he'd ever talk to you and it's just like you know he doesn't really talk to anyone right like he just keeps to himself that's just what he does as a content creator he just kind of does his own thing dudes the dudes like a twitch sub on my channel here on YouTube like he's a member I remember looking at one of his thumbnails and I was like he's stole my thumbnail like just outrageous stuff because you're just upset yeah and really it's it's like it's really easy to get jealous you'd be real bitter or you can be better that's what I've realized and so I just do my own thing same thing happened with other people I remember thinking like Yama's never gonna work with me right like I'm gonna buy like I messaged Chris Sean when he had like 15,000 subs I had like 2,000 or 3,000 something right dude ghosted me and then finally I got closer to his lovely say hey dude what up and I was like I messaged you he's like you did I was like you ghosted me he's like I did and I was like but you didn't ghost me now he's like you know how it is and I'm like you're right I do I do know how it is yeah I'm guilty of it 100 a hundred percent right and so it's real easy to just get caught up in that as a new creator at least it was for me when you're so like want it now most recently people have said hey Josh go make a video with tech lead you're both kind of talking about the same stuff now if I message Patrick they'll get Patrick let's do a video Patrick and be like I have five hundred thousand subscribers you have a hundred and fifty nine thousand subscribers I get way more out of being on his channels and then he gets out of being on my channel chances are everyone on my channel knows who he is but not everyone hit on his channel knows who I am so I get the benefit of that and that's not fair I don't think that's fair and so I haven't asked him for that like if you wanted to do one just because you want to do it and want to spend the time great I'm open to it but I can't feel right about asking for so much without having that much to offer so what else have I learned vlogs don't matter almost at all unless you have the the craziest b-roll transitions and you're living a really rich life doing things that people can't do like fly in helicopters and ride these brand new jet skis and fast cars that most people don't have access to people don't care about your vlogs people end up skipping the b-roll and I like making b-roll but I will very rarely do it unless it specifically adds to the story and that's what I've realized about everything on YouTube story is everything relating is everything on YouTube your ability to walk people through what you are feeling at the time describe the scenario and the circumstances at the time is everything what I've learned on YouTube is if you really want to separate yourself you have to offer value you have to give something to someone at the end of every video or during the video that they can walk away with for example on Twitch you you either have to be like already well-known from another platform and transfer over there and bring your following or you have to be like the best at a game absolutely hilarious or get lucky and someone with a huge following hosted you because just showing up on Twitch every single day from 9:00 to 5:00 doesn't work because just playing video games it's just it the value is not there a lot of people usually wonder how much do you make with this many subscribers and let me be first to tell you that subscriber count is almost irrelevant it's all about view account you get paid per X amount of views pretty much like ads are paid per X amount of views so you can have a lot of subscribers but if you don't get any views that's terrible like there are some Chan that have so many subscribers and get almost no views for example there's a gaming channel called devil dog gamer and I've watched his channel and I think it's good he has almost a million subscribers a lot of his videos do under a hundred thousand which would be you know below 10% of his subscriber base like how can you have to have any subscribers and get that low of an engagement rate and the reason is they don't alert your subscribers like even if you click subscribe and click the belt you may or may not get a notification for it it happens to me I'm subscribed to a bunch of channels and sometimes I get a notification sometimes I don't majority of the time I do not for my channel specifically 33 percent subscriber watch which is huge I thinks like 33 percent of my subscribers watch my videos that's nuts so it really doesn't depend on the amount of subscribers so a lot of people have a lot of subscribers from one video or two videos and then they can't seem to pick up that traction again and so they don't make a lot of money okay another big thing that I've learned on YouTube is people expect forced positivity people expect rainbow and sunshine and gumdrops and fluffy teddy bears and hugs and just smiles all around and nothing's ever gonna go wrong and everything is happy and fun and if you don't have cocaine levels of energy you didn't just hit that line on the desk you know and you're not like top of the morning to you laddies then basically or not meant for YouTube and that's just not true a lot of people will come to your channel and tell you what you need to do people that have no idea people who've never even filmed a video before I used to read these comments and I would take them to heart and I would try to improve that like what's going on guys and smile and you know make an effort to look at the camera and it's just not me man like I can force myself to an extent to be more outgoing and more energetic which is what you have to do in general when you're on camera anyways you're usually about 20% lower energy when you're in front of the lens for whatever reason as a creator when you ask your audience for ideas most of the time your audience is like bro we're here for you man but they don't say that you'll have a minority amount of people who are very vocal about what you should do and what you shouldn't do and and what kind of content you should and shouldn't make and how you should do things and it's always the very vocal minority and it's really hard to understand that and process that because when you're really wanting the feedback a lot of people just watching they're like yeah we don't really care dude we're just we're just here for the info man you do you you know like when you first start creating videos you really really really care what people think of you you're just obsessed like am i doing this wrong would I look like how do I sound how did I present it you're super paranoid and for me it's still kind of awkward to go out in public and film because you have this huge Gorillapod right and you're out and you're in public and you're filming and this is not a light setup nor is it a small setup and you're walking around talking to a camera lens and people are like walking past you and and I can't help but think in the back of my head is like oh my goodness these Millennials like that's what all these adults are thinking of me as I'm walking but it's weird that I still think of older people as adults man that's probably not a good sign is it there's a certain point where I was like okay Josh I don't feel like I'm a valid creator I don't feel like I'm a legitimate youtuber because this isn't my full-time job so there's no way that I have the right to film in public and even look like I'm trying to do this because of what people will think of me like you're not legit bros out your full-time job well no I'm just I'm just trying to since the hobby well then get out of here like for whatever reason those thoughts would enter my mind and then you learn how to stop caring about what these people think of you you know you're just like whatever I don't care yeah they can think what they want and then you make it to the next step and you realize no one actually ever cared at all and you're just all in your head and it doesn't matter no one's even looking at you like when I would go to the gym in film I would think that people are staring at me look at this dude looking at him trying to like be a fitness instant like influencer or like an Instagram guy whatever right really they're not they're just they're wondering like oh do I look good on a camera if I walk by am i gonna be pumped up like they're worried about them everyone is worried about what they look like to other people and no one is actually really thinking about you know what you're doing another thing that I used to wonder before I did this has a job I guess and before I talked to other people that did this as a job is are these people the same like are these people who like who they say they are like what are they not showing and like this room looks really expensive I'll give you that and that's because there's some decent value here but this wasn't overnight and the rest of my house is like empty pretty much you know like this is my offices where I do the videos and stuff and I think I try to be transparent about that like I'm not over here claiming I got Lambos and I got these fancy cars and I got this materialistic lifestyle and my life's not like an Instagram highlight I'm very clear about that I'm not trying to showcase that all I try to showcase with my videos when I talk about running a business and doing this for a living is like I'm doing it for a living and so I would always wonder that like are these people like this in real life if you met them would they be as nice and humble as they as they would as they seem in their video and I think you should have some idea of your image right your public perception of how people see you and I think for the most part the way people see me is how I am in real life and so if you were to come up to me at the gym what just happened a couple times I think I'm just as awkward as I am on camera you're like you're Josh right and I'm like mm-hmm what's up cool just really awkward for me because you you probably know me and how I am but I don't know who you are so just one just want to let you know it's a little bit weird because it's easy to watch videos and relate to people like that and that person has like no idea who you are or whatever questions you want to ask them and so it like takes you a second get caught up and it's always a fun experience it's only happened a couple times I don't know if that makes me internet famous but like you're Josh right like sometimes now I'm just paranoid when people are looking at me I'm like are they oh they're walking over they're walking over I'm just standing in front awaits Josh you're so stupid get out of the way the weeds and focus on working out it's always a humbling experience when that happened it's pretty cool it's pretty cool like because it doesn't always feel like I'm having an effect and it doesn't always feel like these videos go anywhere another thing with YouTube is that oh man it's literally the spider-man scene Uncle Ben with great power comes great responsibility endorsing a product that's what I feel like telling people to do something that's what I feel like whenever I make a video now the people like I did what you said and it worked I'm like holy crap that Wow in 2019 power is is no longer just money it's like attention viewership and trust and credibility and a platform and it's it's very humbling and I'm very careful with with how I I guess use it because it's I never really asked for this I just wanted to help people another thing that I'm hyper aware of I'm always really thinking long-term and I'm always thinking about what I say now and how that might be misconstrued later so if you say something stupid now if you say something offensive without context to it so someone takes a screenshot and slaps that on Twitter you're done that's you're gone so I'm very paranoid with how I talk to people it's kind of a weird thing to have to think about like I want to trust people but at the same time you never know who's gonna come back and be like well he didn't answer my DM that one time okay screenshot and I'm posting it but it's kind of weird that you have to look out for yourself like that that's kind of what it's like to make it on YouTube it's been a really cool experience to wake up and have the choice to spend how I want to spend my days and then sometimes it can be tiresome to have to create content to make something that didn't exist before and share it and and and hope that people still want to listen to you the next day it's a humbling experience I wouldn't be here again without without you guys supporting the channel wouldn't be here without you watching in the thumbs up and the subscribe sleeve in the comments not for the algorithm just because you enjoy the content maybe you like this video hopefully you got something out of it double click that thumbs down if you hated the video and I'll see you guys in the next one [Music]

Channel: Joshua Fluke

Views: 157,711

Rating: 4.8827147 out of 5

Keywords: joshua fluke, code bootcamp, javascript, how to code, web development, brand, developer interview, developer jobs, youtube money

Id: eIqd12MQy78

Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019