Quick Links
As we dive deeper and deeper into the age of the internet, young adults are quickly finding that online platforms are becoming practical gold mines. Eager content creator swarm to sites like YouTube to gain sizable notoriety and those precious Adsense checks.
The platform has come a long way from its humble beginnings of cat videos. Now, as Youtube reaches its sweet 16, it welcomes millions of creators working full time to produce click worthy videos, with some lucky soles even becoming millionaires. These lucky few have cultivated a whole new lane of vocation and, with their ever expanding wealth, have gone on to infiltrate their influence into the world of business. Here are the biggest ventures from the biggest Youtube success stories.
Jeffree Star's Jeffree Cosmetics
The queen of the beauty guru, Jeffree Star has risen from the ashes of controversy more times than a cat has lives. Whether it's holding leverage over his peers with damning secrets or screaming derogatory slurs, somehow this makeup mogul always finds himself on top.
This can certainly be attributed to his colossally successful makeup brand Jeffree Cosmetics. Valued at a stunning $1.5 billion, the brand skyrocketed from Star's built in audience from his YouTube channel.
Competing with mega beauty influencer like Kylie Jenner, Star's makeup line was first conceived in 2013 - making it one of the very first YouTuber products to be sold. Star co-owns the company with early investor Jeff Cohen.
From lip scrubs to mascara, the brand is said to rack in about $100 million a year, making Star the current highest paid YouTube content creator.
DanTDM's novel, Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crysta
If Jeffree Star is the queen of makeup then DanTDM - aka Dan Middleton - is the king of Minecraft. The gamer has accumulated a mountain of success from his "Let's Play"s of the iconic, kid friendly game. In a short time, he's garnished a fan base of 25 million subscribers, a $12 million net worth and even the Guinness World Record title for Most Views for a Dedicated Minecraft Video.
But in 2016, Middleton took on a different endeavor: graphic novels. Using the whacky characters from his videos, DanTDM released a book called Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crysta through the publishing company Trapeze. A daring Minecraft adventure, the novel offered a thrilling yet easy to follow storyline that proved to be perfectly suited for his young viewers.
"I am so excited to finally be able to take the characters I have created and evolved in my videos on new adventures in my first book," Middleton says according to The Bookseller, "Writing this book not only gives me a new way to tell stories to fans, but a new way to meet them via book tours and signing sessions."
Upon its release, the book reached several best selling spots around the world including the US, UK, and Japan. Most notably, Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal held the number 1 spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list for eleven consecutive weeks.
MrBeast’s Virtual Burger Joint
The ever-growing trend of Youtubers giving away thousands in cash and fancy cars to complete strangers for content has made creators like Jimmy Donaldson (commonly known as MrBeast) a fortune. Donaldson racks in 60 million subscribers and an average of $88,000 per day in ad revenue. What's next for MrBeast you ask? Fast food.
With the help of Virtual Dining Concepts, a company which provides "profitable delivery-only restaurant brands," Donaldson sells his MrBeast Burger menu through over 600 locations across the county.
It all began in November of last year, when MrBeast and his team launched a pop up event in Wilson, NC at a redecorated Burger Boy where he sold free meals from his personally curated menu to fans all day long. The event was a hit with lines to the drive-in spanning 20 miles.
As of now, MrBeast has sold over 1 million burgers and open three locations in Canada.
David Dobrik’s Hundred Thousand Dollar Puzzle
Before he received an onslaught of backlash and lost countless brand deals due to a number of controversies, the former face of YouTube David Dobrik was racking in millions from selling his own puzzle.
His 'Hundred Thousand Dollar Puzzle' was released on December 10 as a sort of lottery system with a built in QR code. Essentially, anyone who'd buy the $30 puzzle would receive a sum of cash upon solving it that ranged from 25 cents to the grand prize of $100,000. The puzzle was a huge success, selling around 17,000 in its first hour of launching. This means thag Dobrik made $510,00 in just one hour! He went on to sell 48,000 puzzles within the four months of the project.
"It’s the best selling thing I’ve ever sold in my entire life. And I had no idea it was gonna sell so good," Dobrik says in his podcast Views.
Though many criticized the YouTuber's venture as a way of promoting gambling to his young, impressionable audience. Amidst the explosion of drama Dobrik and his team received this year, a winner was finally revealed: a fifth grade teacher who played to use the $100,000 to pay for her students school supplies.
Sources: Volume One, The Bookseller, Dexerto, Celebrity Net Worth