Hey my name is Charles, a JavaScript Developer from Africa, Kenya. In this post, I will mainly talk about my YouTube journey as a web developer. How much have I earned? What are the challenges? Is it worth it? Will I quit in 2022?

If you wish to check out my channel, here is the link: https://youtube.com/chaoocharles

Analytics
Why did I start YouTube?
Choosing a niche
Getting Monetized
Upwork Freelancing
YouTube Money
Challenges
My 2022 YouTube Goals
Take Away
Support My Content

Analytics

Let me breakdown these analytics for you:

Total Subscribers: 4.7k subscribers
Videos: 126 video uploads
Period: 2.5 years (since jul 2019)
Total Views: 244,998 views
Total watch time: 10.9k hours
Total ad revenue: $374 (10 months)
Donations revenue $38
Revenue from YouTube Opportunities (clients): $780 (3 clients, one premium course)

Why did I start YouTube?

As you can see from the above analytics, I have been uploading content since jul 2019, that is approximately 2.5yrs ago. I wasn't consistent with my uploads though. I was still a student pursuing an I.T degree and in the last semester of my 3rd year. Like many students, I was broke and raised from a humble background. Therefore, before starting my channel I was thinking of different ways I could generate some passive income online while studying.

By the way I graduated this year (2021) 🎉

I explored many options. I tried freelancing on Upwork, but the journey at Upwork was tough and I didn't get even a single client after applying on several projects. And then I thought of YouTube. I knew that YouTube would not start paying me any time soon, but the idea of it paying me by the time I graduate was awesome. At least I would have something to keep me busy before I got a full-time job. This is what motivated me to start uploading.

Choosing a niche

I watched many advisory YouTube videos before settling for a niche. First I had thought of gaming, I thought this was easier because I would be having fun while doing it. The challenge was that my laptop is a low level laptop (it's what I'm still using even when writing this post). I remember my classmates joking about it, they used to call it CRT 😂😭 I still call it that way, lol. I will share the specs later in the post.

So, gaming failed like nobody's business 😂. I thought of vlogs but then I didn't have a camera, not even a phone with a nice camera. Since I was pretty comfortable working with HTML, CSS and React, I settled with web development tutorials. This didn't require a powerful PC nor a camera. It just needed a screen recorder, a microphone(I have been using a phone for this for a long time), a vs code, a chrome browser and me at work.

Getting Monetized

I have never seen anything hard in life like being monetized on YouTube 😭 The momentum of uploading videos also goes from 100 to 0 real quick after just a few uploads. This is mainly so when you don't have any other social following to give you the initial boost.

The requirement for monetization is 1k subs and 4k hours of watch time. This bar is so high and I uploaded videos for almost 2 years without getting a penny from YouTube. But this might have been because of many reasons like lack of consistency with my uploads, sh*tty content, bad English and many other factors. But who cares? I was definitely trying my best.

For me to keep uploading, I had to switch my mindset from getting money from YouTube to just helping and teaching others. This is still my mindset, otherwise, if it was just for money I would have quitted a long time ago.

I got my first 100 subs from my classmates and friends, but only about 3 of them were actually watching my content 😂 I was getting very little watch time from them and my videos were hardly getting over 50 views. I had to learn different ways of boosting my videos. That is when I realized reddit existed, that is when I learned about this DEV site and I'm happy to be here by the way 😍 You guys got me to 1k subs 🥳

I joined several Facebook groups but I was banned from most of them for spamming them with my low quality content 😣 I had to simply improve the quality and that is exactly what I did. After dropping two good react and MERN stack series, I got to 1k subs and even got the 4k watch time. I was monetized on march 2021

Upwork Freelancing

I wasn't earning a sh*t from YouTube for a long time, but man must pay bills and eat. I therefore started freelancing again on Upwork in 2020. I had more time since all schools had been closed due to covid-19. This time round I got a few clients, and I could earn a little while creating content. I was doing small projects like fixing bugs and cloning designs to html and CSS. I didn't manage to get good paying projects on Upwork so I quitted after a few months. But my Upwork profile is still solid. Maybe I might go back later in life 👇

YouTube Money

I thought that I would become a millionaire once I was monetized on YouTube. I'm still broke and it doesn't work that way 😂 To generate enough revenue from ads, the videos should be getting good viewership. Right now I get about 500 views per day on average. This makes between $1 to $3 per day

As you can see, I'm hardly making money from YouTube ads. Despite having a deep passion on content creation, I'm still heavily relying on freelancing and it's so hard to focus on YouTube fulltime as for now.

Challenges

Shitty setup - Shitty content - although you can just start YouTube with whatever equipment that you have, sometime the equipment can greatly affect the quality. I'm still using my shitty setup 👇 (but it's way better than nothing 😊)

My laptop is very low level, 3gb ram, core 2 duo CPU. Hangs a lot when recording, can't do heavy video editing. I bought this laptop from my students loan and it really helped me to study coding and even complete my studies. I still use a budget phone for audio (Samsung A22 4g) - Bought with freelance money.

Lack of consistency - With school work it was so hard to be consistent with my video uploads. Tutorials are not easy to create, they require research time(even when you know the topic very well), recording and editing.

My 2022 YouTube Goals

Will I be quitting YouTube in 2022? Hell No! I am more ready and pumped up than ever before. I once wished to be monetized on YouTube and now I am. I once wished to get to 1k subs and now I am at 4.7k.

Some channels which started around the same period as mine grew so big (e.g dev ed and web dev simplified with over 700k subs) and mine is still so tiny. This tells me how big the room for growth and improvement is. As long as I get to help at least one person, I'm good to go.

The following are my 2022 YouTube goals:

Become a bit more consistent. At least one well curated video per week
Work my ass off and upgrade my setup for better quality content
Get to 20k subs
Earn at least $300+ per month from YouTube ads Revenue

Take Away

If you are looking forward to start a YouTube Channel or if you already have one, the following is what you can take a way from this post.

You can start YouTube with any equipment you have, but strive to upgrade to better one.
Be consistent with uploads, your content will go a long way that way.
Share your content on other platforms but do not spam like I did. Otherwise you will be kicked out
Have a side hustle. Otherwise you will die of hunger. Small channels earn peanuts.
Try to improve your content with every upload.
If you want to start YouTube, the best time is now.
Be humble and be yourself. I'm still learning to be myself though coz I don't know who I am 😂

Support My Content

Your support will help me to upgrade my setup for better quality content and more videos per month.

Subscribe (Get me closer to 5k subs): https://youtube.com/chaoocharles
Donate with PayPal: Chaoo Charles PayPal Link
Support via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/chaoocharles

My YouTube Journey as a Web Developer. Will I quit YouTube in 2022?

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