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After searching for a side hustle to complement her day job as an elementary-school teacher, Maya Lee decided to start a YouTube channel all about teaching.
She started posting videos to the platform in 2017, and now she has 259,000 followers and is earning more money each month off her YouTube business than as a teacher.
Lee said that making videos about one specific topic (being a teacher) helped jumpstart her channel and build an initial following online.
“I realized that people don’t want to watch a channel if I only talk about my own life if they don’t feel a connection with me and I don’t really have an audience yet,” Lee told Business Insider. “I knew I had to find a specific niche.”
Within a year, she was already earning money from her videos and her channel had gained about 10,000 subscribers all because she landed an audience by talking about teaching, she said.
But after spending her first year on YouTube making videos like decorating and organizing her classroom, and documenting a day in her life, Lee decided to switch her content to a broader topic to reach a wider audience.
“That was also when I saw a huge jump in my channel’s growth,” she said. “I started noticing people engaging with my content a lot more.”
She decided to switch her content away from teaching to more about her morning routine waking up at 5 a.m. and her tips for having a productive morning.
Lee has several popular videos on her channel about waking up early. Her most popular video, “Waking up at 5AM | My Productive Morning Routine,” has 4.8 million views and has earned $8,900, according to a screenshot viewed by Business Insider. That video continues to earn money each month and bring in thousands of new subscribers to her channel, she said.
Eventually, Lee said her goal is to have YouTube become her primary career.