4 Years of Youtube, 10K Subscriptions and $400 - The Worst Side Hustle I've Ever Picked

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I have a degree in systems analysis and development, which means that programming is like one of the members of my body, it has been part of my life from high school to college. But why don't I write about programming? It is all the fault of my first job.

The way I was hooked on programming in the years from 2012 to 2014, it was very likely that I would be a creator with the programming niche. So in 2011 when I created the YouTube channel codenamed Casimiro Designer, I would do some tutorials teaching how to get started in basic to advanced programming. But then I abandoned the channel and went on to get a job.

In 2017 I decided to start teaching some tutorials on how to handle my country's financial system, my videos started getting some views and I started getting some subscribers as well. In 2018 the channel grew to a few thousand subscribers, in 2019 I started to be notorious among the youth in my country, 2020 was the year that I grew the most as a creator on YouTube, this year I managed to reach 10 thousand followers and I concluded that I had never made such a wrong investment as starting on YouTube in my native language.

In February I turned 4 years since I posted the first video talking about finances, today the video has 34K views, and I made $5 from that video. Alright, when I managed to monetize the channel in December 2019, that video already had 24K views, so that $5 was earned by the following 10K Views. Shame on me… as one speaker said, YouTube is not Equity, work for a real Side Hustle.

The worst investment I still make and love.

YouTube has become the worst investment I still make and love. I know I don't make anything significant from YouTube, but I simply love creating content with this platform and helping thousands of young people in my area become real creators. Since 2017 I have been talking about finance, it has filled my soul so much that I can't look at another niche. Finance changed my life, maybe that's why I don't talk about programming or design which were my first passions at the beginning of everything.

I know that a true Side Hustle, transforms your career, but even though I chose the wrong Side Hustle (at least I can say that), it is still worth it to make YouTube videos if you are passionate about it.

With YouTube I learned that we must have a lot of patience in businesses we choose as Side Hustle, it's not enough to start because it's biased, you must love what you've done, it can define a lot in your career as an ordinary creator.

I have been writing for 2 years and three weeks on Medium, and I have only 900 followers, Medium has paid me more than YouTube in 4 years. Although, Medium's monetization started earlier than YouTube's. Maybe that's fair because my channel started monetizing in December 2019 and my Medium account started monetizing on the very first day August 19, 2019; a 4-month monetization difference. But comparing the number of views I've achieved with YouTube versus Medium, YouTube would have to have a good justification.

It all comes down to the native language in which the content is based; if I made videos in English, the 140K+ views on YouTube I believe would give a good revenue, for a channel that doesn't have a single video with copyright notices.

Creating Portuguese language content can cost a lot more than starting a small English language Side Hustle project. Hence the gigantic difference between my YouTube and my Medium.

Starting a Side Hustle should be thought out tailored to each situation you may face until you get there. Not everything will be worth it.