One minute I had full-time work at the zero-waste, plant-based street food and catering business my partner founded in late 2018. The next, all of our business was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dozens of people I know also lost their jobs or had to shutter their companies.I counted my blessings . I qualified for CERB’s monthly $2,000 payment, and anxiously tried without success to find a new job or contract work in IT. The world suddenly felt very scary and uncertain.
Over time, we drifted apart as friends and put a hold on our gaming ambitions. I moved to Dubai for work in 2015, and then to Vancouver. Alex followed his dream and started a career in Québec’s video game industry.During the pandemic, the isolation of working from home was making him unhappy -like platform called Trovo. While the money we make varies month to month, it’s certainly enough to live on. And I can’t imagine doing anything else. Here’s how we do it.A normal workday starts by checking social media and gaming news websites for announcements or updates about the games we play — a quick and easy topic for a new Youtube video. Otherwise, Alex and I spend a few hours brainstorming ideas for that week’s videos and guides.
We have since expanded our revenue streams beyond Youtube. Paid subscriptions on social video platforms can make us about $5 a month each . Some streaming platforms pay content creators regularly, allowing us to make between US$700 and US$6,000 a month depending on the number of hours watched. Recently a game studio paid us a few hundred dollars for a sponsored video, which is how the vast majority of content creators make money.