Rosanna Pansino: From YouTube Baker to $50 Million Lifestyle Empire
Rosanna Pansino was a struggling actress in Los Angeles, going to auditions and getting rejected constantly. She suffered from severe anxiety and stage fright. In 2011, her friends suggested she start a YouTube channel to get more comfortable on camera. She decided to combine two things she loved—baking and nerdy pop culture. She started ‘Nerdy […]
Charli D’Amelio: From High School Dancer to $20 Million TikTok Phenomenon
In May 2019, Charli D’Amelio was a 15-year-old competitive dancer from Connecticut with no social media following. She downloaded TikTok—a new app most Americans hadn’t heard of—and started posting dance videos in her bedroom. She had no professional training in content creation, no brand, and no strategy. TikTok was dominated by established creators, and the […]
Pat Flynn: From Laid-Off Architect to $3 Million Online Business Teacher
In 2008, Pat Flynn was living the American Dream. He had a stable architecture job, was about to get married, and had just bought his first home. Then the recession hit, and he was laid off. Overnight, his stable income vanished, and he was staring at mortgage payments with no job prospects. Architecture firms were […]
Huda Kattan: From Makeup Blogger to $1.2 Billion Beauty Empire
Huda Kattan was working as a makeup artist in Dubai, doing freelance gigs for brides and fashion shows. In 2010, at her sister’s suggestion, she started a beauty blog called ‘Huda Beauty’ to share makeup tutorials. The beauty industry was already saturated with influencers and massive brands like MAC, Sephora, and L’Oréal. Huda was an […]
Emma Chamberlain: From Awkward Teen to $12 Million Coffee Empire
Emma Chamberlain was a lonely, anxious teenager in San Francisco who didn’t fit in at her private high school. In 2017, at age 16, she started making vlogs in her bedroom with cheap equipment and basic editing software. Her style was the opposite of polished YouTube beauty gurus—she was messy, unfiltered, awkward, and real. She […]
MrBeast: From Bedroom Videos to $700 Million Empire
Jimmy Donaldson started making YouTube videos at age 13 from his childhood bedroom in North Carolina. For years, nobody watched. He uploaded thousands of videos analyzing other creators, playing games, and doing random challenges. His views were abysmal. His friends and family thought he was wasting his life. By age 18, he was still living […]