1000 Subscribers
I’ve been using Youtube since around 2008, but I never considered actually posting on Youtube. For a long time, perhaps because I was exposed to Youtube during its earliest years, I viewed Youtube videos as silly and click-baity, and Youtubers as shamelessly self-promoting themselves to make up for their own inadequacies.
Well, now I think I can call myself a Youtuber.
I first created my Youtube channel in November of 2021 in order to easily deliver content to my 11th Grade Computer Science students during the pandemic. It was an astonishingly easy way to teach complex Computer Science concepts in a way that would allow my students to go through them at their own pace. 11 months later, I have over 1100 subscribers and 5500 viewing hours (people have spent around 5500 hours watching my videos) and I was able to recently monetize my videos, meaning that I earn a little bit of money every time someone watches one of my videos.
My channel focuses on teaching Python, which has become the de facto lingua franca of programming as of late. There has been an explosion in demand from people wanting to learn Python, and by focusing on specific aspects of the language, I’ve been able to take advantage of this. I mainly record videos of myself coding, without showing my face, and I explain what each line of code does. I also post the code I have written in the description of each video, so that viewers can easily follow along and/or make use of the code in their own projects.
The fact that I’m making any money at all has really pushed me to become an entrepreneur of sorts, because it’s proof that I’m capable of making money on my own, without working for someone else. To be clear, at the moment, I’m only making around $40 a month off my Youtube channel - definitely not enough to quit my day job. However, it’s taught me the value of pursuing a goal in the long-term without expectations of immediate payoff - most business ventures require years of hard work before they are successful. My short journey into Youtube, spending 100s of hours recording, editing and curating my Youtube videos over the course of a year, has given me a taste of not only the hard work required, but the possibility of success.
Where do I go from here?
First, I want to make more videos that expand on different aspects of the Python language - more advanced concepts in the language, doing data science-related tasks in Python, and even building mobile apps using Python.
I also want to make "talking head" videos talking about the field of software development. I attempted to do this early on, but for a variety of reasons, I could never make it work. After getting a new camera and a little practice, I think I’m in a better position to make high-quality, interesting videos with myself speaking about a specific topic for 10 minutes or less. I specifically want to focus on the area of “soft skills”, mainly communication and social skills in the context of the technology field as I feel that many software developers lose out on jobs or promotions simply because they aren’t effective communicators. Basically, to go beyond the programming skills.
As part of this effort, I’m about 50% done with an ebook that provides a sort of manual for writing effective emails - the most pervasive form of communication in any tech job. I’ve also just started work on an ebook that will focus on IT-related writing skills (technical writing) for English learners, which will draw on both my technology background and my time as an English teacher. I think this is a particularly juicy market as there are a huge number of extremely talented developers who are not native English speakers, including many of my viewers, and this is often the main obstacle to better job opportunities for them.
Finally, my current job has taught me that I don’t ever want to be in a position where I’m forced to spend the majority of my day doing a job I hate. I also don’t want to be limited by my location. So, I’ve started learning mobile development with the goal of freelancing online as an Android and React Native developer.
Why mobile? I like the idea of working on a smaller, more portable device than a computer - it takes myself back to my days as an electronics enthusiast. I also find it more manageable than building a large-scale web application. While a web application would require me to be talented at frontend and backend development as well as managing the server infrastructure required to actually get the web app online, mobile development simply seem requires me to focus on the phone. While it’s difficult to build seamless applications in both the mobile and the web space, with mobile I feel that I need a much more focused and narrow range of skills than with web development.
I try to do as much as I can to advance towards these goals on a daily basis, but it’s difficult with a job that leaves me so drained by the end of the day. The Youtube channel is an ongoing effort and I hope to have both of my ebooks done by June of next year. With regards to mobile development, I want to have developed at least 2 sophisticated mobile apps in the education space by the end of the next year, with the goal of setting up shop on websites like Fiverr and Upwork by the end of 2023.
These are challenging, long term goals, but ironically a job I hate so much has given me much more confidence and motivation to advance towards a lifestyle of location independence and freelance work. I wanted to embark on this path after quitting my recent job in Kyrgyzstan last summer, but I was honestly…scared. I won’t be making that mistake again.