30-year-old Caspar Lee was as soon as a YouTube megastar and is now a serial entrepreneur.
Caspar Lee
Caspar Lee belongs to a crop of content material creators who discovered early success on YouTube again within the 2010s, commanding tens of millions of views on the platform.
The 30-year-old serial entrepreneur, who was born in England and raised in Knysna, a city in South Africa, mentioned he lucked out on the YouTube scene after restarting his channel thrice. He racked up over 6 million subscribers by means of a variety of comedic movies, together with pranks and challenges.
He credit his success to collaborating with different well-known YouTubers from the likes of Zoe Sugg, Marcus Butler, Joe Sugg, MrBeast and KSI.
The YouTube sensation additionally featured celebrities like Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick and Kevin Hart in his movies and gained anyplace between 1 to 18 million views for every.
“I used to be fortunate to be a part of a gaggle of people who all got here up collectively, so I by no means essentially had abilities I do not assume, aside from the truth that I used to be capable of collaborate with some superb folks and hopefully make my viewers snigger alongside the way in which,” Lee mentioned in an interview with CNBC Make It.
“It was a really thrilling time. I feel I used to be 20 years previous after I began to get tens of millions of views and looking out again, it was simply the daybreak of this entire creator economic system, and I did not actually know what that was on the time. I do not assume any of us did. We had been simply having a bunch of enjoyable.”
The creator economic system refers to folks making an revenue by monetizing their abilities, abilities and hobbies on-line. And it is a booming trade estimated to develop to $480 million by 2027, up from $250 billion in 2023, per a Goldman Sachs report.
I at all times needed to do one thing outdoors of YouTube, as a result of I knew in my 30s and 40s, I did not wish to essentially simply be counting on that.
Being a YouTuber generally is a profitable profession. Lee mentioned creators with tens of millions of subscribers can usually make tens of millions of {dollars} a 12 months by becoming a member of the YouTube Accomplice Program and incomes cash by means of Google-placed adverts of their movies.
MrBeast, an American YouTube personality with essentially the most subscribers on the planet, rakes in $600 million to $700 million a 12 months by means of his channel.
Nonetheless, simply as he was on the peak of his profession in 2019, Lee stepped away from YouTube, leaving his followers to marvel why he had give up.
“It is actually exhausting to take care of an viewers of that degree,” Lee mentioned. “It most likely comes throughout [as] straightforward, however as YouTube progressed, it grew to become increasingly more aggressive,” he added.
“I at all times needed to do one thing outdoors of YouTube, as a result of I knew in my 30s and 40s, I did not wish to essentially simply be counting on that.”
Lee, who began dipping his toe into entrepreneurship throughout his YouTube days, has made a full-time pivot into enterprise and launched a portfolio of corporations within the creator economic system.
“Identical to after I began YouTube, when there weren’t that many doing it, I needed to start out this subsequent factor earlier than too many individuals had been doing it. In enterprise, that is a helpful technique to have,” he mentioned.
‘Creators are pure entrepreneurs’
Lee mentioned he believes that “creators are pure entrepreneurs’ as a result of they’re already serving a customer-base — their viewers.”
He added: “Being a creator may be very clear. Individuals see how nicely you do each single day and like working a public firm, not that I do, however in the event you do, it is robust, as a result of you could have folks checking on how your shares are doing and so I feel there’s that strain.”
Lee mentioned his first enterprise into entrepreneurship was when in 2017 he co-founded the influencer advertising firm Influencer.com, alongside Ben Jeffries. Lee can be its chief imaginative and prescient officer.
He then went into enterprise with fellow YouTuber Joe Suggs and collectively they established the expertise administration firm MVE in 2018 in partnership with IMG and Endeavor Group.
Lee co-founded a enterprise capital agency Creator Ventures along with his cousin Sasha Kaletsky in 2022.
Caspar Lee
Thereafter, Lee co-founded Correct Residing — lodging in Cape City for college kids and younger professionals.
“In my life, I’ve managed to encompass myself with folks, and I am going to take any name, I am going to do any assembly, and I am able to do a good suggestion if it presents itself,” Lee mentioned.
Lee was acknowledged on the Forbes “30 Under 30” record in Europe in 2020 for his work with Influencer.com.
His most profitable enterprise but has been in collaboration along with his cousin Sasha Kaletsky — a former non-public fairness funding skilled at Bridgepoint.
Lee and Kaletsky co-founded the London-based enterprise capital agency Creator Ventures in 2022, which closed on its first $20 million fund in March of the identical 12 months to put money into international consumer-internet startups. This contains the synthetic intelligence language studying app Praktika, which has raised $35.5 million so far.
Different purchasers vary from Beehiiv, a publication platform for creators, and Eleven Labs, a text-to-speech, AI voice generator.
Creator Ventures is ready to boost its second spherical of funds within the subsequent few months.
Creators should not depend on their fame
Creators who wish to achieve success as entrepreneurs should construct companies that may stand on their very own with out counting on their fame, Lee mentioned.
“What’s so essential with these companies and similar to my enterprise is it may possibly solely go up to now with that sort of leg up it will get from the creator. You truly should construct a superb enterprise delivering superb providers to your purchasers,” he mentioned.
“They want to have the ability to not depend on their very own relevancy for it to constantly work.”
TikTok darling Addison Rae, who has over 88 million followers, had her cosmetics model Item Beauty dropped by Sephora in 2023 attributable to faltering gross sales after solely two years.
Individually, Instagrammer Ariana Renee did not promote 36 t-shirts to her 2.6 million followers throughout an preliminary drop for her clothes line in 2019.
“You do not wish to create faux traction and that is not going to really assist you once you’re launching a enterprise since you would possibly get some preliminary income, but when the traction is just there as a result of folks love the YouTube movies you make, however they do not essentially love the bathroom paper you are promoting, you can promote it for just a few months or so long as you are related on YouTube, and to solely a sure sized viewers,” Lee mentioned.
“However in the event you even have actual traction then you possibly can go to your complete bathroom paper-buying world.”
