This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Homemade art tutorials turn struggling Mexican artists into YouTube star. This is a fun story. Welcome to Side Hustle School. Today we're gonna talk about a struggling painter and sculptor who uploads a drawing video to YouTube. Pretty simple concept.
And he discovers this massive audience for tutorials on hand drawing, generating over 50 million views in six years. And also those numbers might be a little bit outdated. This story is actually a remix of one of our favorite stories from year one of the podcast. So if you were actually listening in 2017, you might remember some parts of it, but we try to do some updates for these stories. And also if you don't have an incredible memory, if you weren't listening in 2017, it's completely new to you.
Now this is a lesson in persistence and tweaking. This guy has done such a fantastic job. He's still going. I went to take a look at his YouTube and as I said, back then he had 50 million views. I'm not sure exactly what the number is now, but it is much higher and he's earning a good income from it.
So let's talk about how do you follow your passion and actually monetize it, which in some ways is the theme of Side Hustle School, nearly 3000 episodes in. And to that end, at least in this iteration, I'm gonna bring you the story of Leonardo Pereznieto. That story after the break. [Music]
Leonardo Pereznieto wasn't your average artist. His first painting exhibit was at Goya Gallery in Mexico City when he was just eight years old.
Growing up, his art appeared in galleries across Mexico, the United States, France, Italy, and Germany. But despite this early success and formal education in three countries, he struggled to pay the bills with his art. Everything changed thanks to a spontaneous experiment with YouTube. One afternoon, Leonardo grabbed his iPhone 4, shout out to old iPhones, some paper and a pencil. Using a homemade tripod, he recorded himself sketching a realistic eye.
He sped up the five minute drawing using iMovie, added some piano music and uploaded it to YouTube. To his surprise, dozens of people watched the video within hours, which he figured was pretty good. His channel called Fine Art Tips gained its first subscribers and prompted him to create more videos. After experimenting with random uploads for nearly a year, it took time. Leonardo had several thousand views and over a hundred subscribers.
Still not huge numbers, but he sensed potential. He started monetizing his channel with ads and committed to publishing a new video every Tuesday. Now this consistency proved crucial. His viewership and earnings began to rise. He also refined his approach using how-to titles that performed well in YouTube searches and selecting engaging thumbnails rather than letting YouTube choose them automatically.
Within about four months, each of his channels was bringing in $500 a month and he figured, okay, now I can get serious. But he still maintained the DIY setup until he reached a hundred thousand subscribers when he finally invested in some professional equipment that we kept his homemade tripod as a reminder of humble beginnings. The channels began to grow much quicker thanks to a mix of viewer requests and his own creative ideas. Videos like how to draw a circle freehand and how to draw a water drop became viral hits, garnering millions of views. Now as his channels grew, Leonardo built a small team to handle the increasing workload.
He hired help for social media, email responses, and the video upload process. Through a fortunate connection at an art event, he also found a reliable video editor, allowing him to focus on what he loved most, creating art. This freed him to enhance his content by filming each drawing from multiple angles, giving viewers a better perspective on his techniques. The success of his YouTube channels helped Leonardo pay off his school debts and opened unexpected doors. He appeared in a Korean documentary, he tested virtual reality art tools for Google, and signed a deal with a New York publishing company.
His channels grew to over two million subscribers, and as mentioned, videos accumulating more than 50 million views. What started with the simple iPhone video evolved into something far more meaningful than just a revenue stream. Leonardo's tutorials have helped grandmothers bond with their grandchildren over art, given retirees a way to rediscover old passions, and enabled students who couldn't afford art lessons to pursue their dreams. And it all began because one afternoon, the struggling artist decided to hit the upload button. [Music]
Well, there's a lot we can take from this short story, a lesson in consistency, perhaps, in setting a schedule and committing to make that new video every week, and then also just paying attention to what was working, improving the process along the way.
Thumbnails are super important for YouTube and social media, but YouTube in particular, it's kind of the main source you think about when you think about how important the thumbnail image, the small image is, the little preview image. Also just understanding the titling, like he started titling his videos, how to draw a circle, and lots and lots of people were actually searching for that. It's hard to draw a circle. So he's combining his own interests with what people are looking for and searching for, and just kind of figuring out what is the magic circle, we'll use that word, that connects both of these things. And that's how he's been able to do so well.
As I said, starting way back in 2013, and the channel is still active, he's not posting as much. I think he went to do a master's degree in Spain, but it's still up. And the other cool thing is about this kind of YouTube channel or something else, even if he stops doing it for a while, people can continue to watch, right? And it continues to earn money, but also not just the money. As noted, people are engaging with it, they're using it in their own lessons, grandparents connecting with grandchildren, it's just a lot of fun, right?
So if you're out there with a skill or a passion, you're thinking about how do I get this out to the world? I hope that you too will think about, okay, where's my upload button? What is the step I need to take to get closer to my goals or the thing that I'm interested in or that I believe in? And I hope you'll take at least one small step today. Much more is coming up.
This was episode 2,993 of the podcast. A new episode drops every single morning. You can always listen wherever you get your podcasts for free. That's it for now. I wish you a wonderful day.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
