The internet is a web of opportunities. Many look at YouTube for entertainment, but some look at it for business. The highest paid YouTube channel is PewDiePie who reportedly made $12 million last year, according to FORBES. Meet some Africans who are making money online.
<h4>Caspar Lee</h4>
Not many can say they were self-made millionaires by the age of 20. Caspar Lee can— thanks to YouTube.
“At the age of 16, I started making YouTube videos because I was bored and I could use them to procrastinate my homework way more effectively,” he says on YouTube.
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After about a year and two unsuccessful YouTube channels, he started Dicasp (Director Caspar).
“Six months after starting Dicasp, it became fairly popular, so I traveled to England to meet and collaborate with people like Jack and Finn Harries, Sam Pepper, Marcus Butler, Alfie Deyes and Bertie Gilbert. These collabs dramatically increased my following, and I went back to South Africa with one intention: to make a life out of YouTube because there is nothing I love more.”
And it is what he has done. On December 31, 2012, he moved to England. Thirteen days later, he moved into his own flat.
“A huge part of me wanted to stay in South Africa but I am confident and positive I have made the right decision. Living in London allows me to work with some of the best YouTubers in the world on a day to day basis,” he says.
It is this dedication that has earned Lee over 6.8 million subscribers to his channel and over 649 million views.
This is big money.
According to reports, Lee was banking R5 million ($350,000) a year in 2014 and his net worth was estimated to be $2 million in 2015.
Lee says he has no idea how to describe his channel. He posts anything that comes to mind and takes suggestions from his subscribers.
His main source of income is the advertisements before and after his videos. His fame has also stirred him to acting and book writing.
<h4>Martin Lorton</h4>
Lorton started his IT career in 1991 but he lost his job in 2011.
“I had an idea that it was coming but I didn’t expect it to come so quickly,” he says.
It gave him time to tinker and play. He started sharing videos on YouTube for fun.
“I tried work doing solar power, energy audits and heat pump installations but none of that took off. After not being paid for a small solar-powered project and being rather peeved, I decided to try make money out of running my YouTube channel full time,” he says.
It took off.
He has over 2 million views on one video, over a million on another, and many with hundreds of thousands of views. In July 2013, at 18 months, he was earning about $5,000 per month; about $1,900 from YouTube and the rest from a sponsor.
“I have over 21 million views in total across my channel and average about 500,000 views per month with 620 videos… It’s no longer enough to make a viable full-time income from YouTube alone. In the last 18 months, the advertising rates on YouTube have dropped to a quarter of what they were in 2013 and my sponsor did not renew at the beginning of this year. My income now averages about $1,500 per month.”
Lorton has diversified into affiliate sales through Amazon, earns some money from crowd-funding platform Patreon, produces videos for the channels of other companies and sells advertising space on his website.
“It’s very difficult to start out now on YouTube and make a viable income. You really need to stand out among hundreds of thousands of other channels trying to do the same thing. Your chances of success now are really slim compared to when I started out.”
The channel is for people interested in solar power, electronic measurement equipment, and multimeters. He does reviews, tutorials, how-tos, fun testing, experiments, innovative ideas and solutions.
It may take a while for Lorton to start making as much as he used to, but it is $1,500 he didn’t have.
<h4>Nadav Ossendryver</h4>
Ossendryver has always been fascinated by wildlife. As an obsessive Kruger National Park visitor, his favorite pastime was asking his parents to flag down passing motorists asking them what they had seen. Eventually they tired of this and said no. Ossendryver looked to technology to solve his problem.
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At the age of 15, he founded Latest Sightings, a wildlife crowdsourcing site for visitors who are in the Kruger National Park to report the animals and events that they are seeing live. They report their location, time and sighting to Latest Sightings, which in turn broadcasts it on social media.
“At 15 I was naïve and phoned an app development company to ask them to develop my idea. They quoted R200,000 ($13,000) and I said ‘no thanks’ as I didn’t have that kind of money.”
He spent hours on YouTube teaching himself how to code an iPhone app.
“Within three weeks, I had the app out on the App Store. I used social media to grow a community of around 30,000 in three weeks. All of this for only $10 for the domain name for my site.”
Four years later, Ossendryver has one of the top-viewed YouTube channels in South Africa. With over 307,000 subscribers and over 351 million views worldwide, it makes money.
The dream of an eight-year-old boy may make headlines one day.
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<h4>Theodora Lee</h4>
Caspar Lee’s sister, Theodora Lee, is also making money online. She created her self-titled YouTube channel in 2013, and currently has over 230,000 subscribers and 10 million views. She is known for her advice to the young.
“Currently, I post weekly videos on YouTube that aim to uplift and educate people on coming-of-age topics. I like to chat openly about stuff we all go through so that people can feel less alone and find ways to get through their issues and be the happiest they can be,” she says on her blog.
Last year, she won Best YouTube Channel at the African Blogger Awards and was a finalist for Best African Blogger at the 2016 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. She is also working on her debut novel.

YouTube-preneurs

He has more than 190,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel; more than 10 million views and more than 130,000 Twitter followers; 70,000 Facebook subscribers and chances are, you’ve never heard of him. In his own words, “I am a South African teenager who sometimes talks to a camera.” He is, Caspar Lee.
His dry humor tweets range from “I had four too many strawberry milkshakes today” to “If my feet are happy then I am happy” and some which are slightly more risqué. The video content is made up of such simple concepts as babysitting his niece and nephew, prank videos that include getting passersby to send suggestive text messages to friends and a guide on how to be awesome.
“Usually I make videos that I edit and I do funny things in them,” says Lee in one of his YouTube videos.
The 18-year-old matric student, residing in Knysna, South Africa, started making videos in November 2011 out of boredom because he wanted to do more with his spare time. It was then that the self-confessed gaming addict turned to YouTube.
“And then I made another video and another video,” says Lee in his YouTube monologue titled ‘Pro YouTuber’.
“I’d won a competition in which I received R40,000 ($4,600) worth of equipment from Google including a Canon 60D with an L-Series Lens, two studio lights, microphones, stabilizers, other lenses and tripods,” says Lee in an email to me.
Yet, true fame only came when he started collaborating with YouTube stars in the United Kingdom such as Jack Harries (JacksGap), Sam Pepper (OfficialSamPepper), Marcus Butler (MarcusButlerTV) and Alfie Deyes (Pointlessblog).
“I went to England and met some of the best people in the world and they made videos with me,” says Lee.
This was a case of crossover audience marketing at its best. People started subscribing to Casper Lee’s YouTube account and now he is in a position to record his social media videos full-time.
“I’m gaining 1,700 new subscribers on YouTube a day at the moment—that’s more than 50,000 in the past month,” he says.
However, the story is so much more lucrative, as there are some economic rewards that come with online fame.
“Most people don’t know how lucrative YouTube is for the top 1,000 channels. It is a full time gig! Not only do you get paid to make videos on YouTube, you also get paid for all the other things that go along with it such as selling T-shirts, broadcasting live webcam shows, sponsorships, and so much more! It is so exciting,” he says.
Although he was hesitant to reveal how much he is earning to justify being a full-time YouTuber, Lee assures me that the top YouTubers are making a small fortune through shared advertising revenue models with YouTube and promotional work.
With YouTube comments galore from adoring fans which run along the lines of “How do you make your hair all sexy like that?” and “Hi, my name is Alison and I’m a unicorn,” it becomes quite evident that Lee is a hit with the ladies or just a hit in general with those who enjoy an energetic youngster from the Western Cape. In Caspar’s opinion, 99% of the things that go viral are either really funny, really sexy or really cute. The formula has proven to work for him.
Social media tends to be a bit like compound interest. The more followers you have, the more you are bound to receive. When asked about the secret to his fame, Lee enlightens me that it has something to do with being South African, which is a rarity on YouTube and the fact that he is very open and genuine.
With all this social media traction, not seen by some of the country’s biggest media and celebrity brands, what could marketing professionals and brands learn from Caspar Lee?
“I see so many marketers and brands automatically sharing everything they do and it just becomes irritating. Less is definitely more when it comes to social media. I don’t really follow any brands unless they’re funny because if I want to buy one of their products I’ll research it myself rather than having them shove their products down my throat every five minutes,” he says.
There is no talk of university degrees or studying in the near future. He plans to move to London in 2013 to become a professional YouTuber, or in other words, to record himself, in a room, upload it onto YouTube and make money through endorsements and advertising whilst entertaining a new following of people, that have subscribed to his accounts, since you started reading this article.

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