🤑 How to make it as an NTF YouTuber + ❗Cohort closing TODAY!

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📚 On the blog

🥷 How a former financial analyst now makes >$100/day as an NFT YouTuber

Today we're sharing an unusual journey.

A story of a Wall Street financial analyst turned no-code entrepreneur who has found success on YouTube making content she never planned for.

"Hi, I’m Aprilynne Alter!

Back in my education days, most of my peers were moving towards careers in finance, investment banking, and real estate because that's where all the money was.

I convinced myself that it was what I wanted too.

I got an internship at a Series-A venture-backed startup in Silicon Valley, and it was a life-changing opportunity.

It opened my eyes in terms of understanding what was possible, and what a small group of dedicated people could accomplish. You don't need to be Elon Musk to be an entrepreneur; there's so much more out there."

Getting (and hating) a job in finance

"When I graduated college, I had to decide: Do I want to return to the global financial institution career path, or should I join the startup?

Mostly owing to COVID, I went against my gut feeling, and chose the bank.

But within a couple of months, I hated it.

I just couldn't use any of what I believed were my superpowers — my creativity, my writing skills, my love for visual art & design — in my financial analyst role.

That’s when I knew I had to quit. It was a very scary decision but I gave myself one year to do my own thing."

Testing the entrepreneur waters

"Around that time, I had the idea of starting a platform that connects students with internships at startups, and it was starting to garner some attention.

I called it Tenderfoot. I had people from around the world asking me about it, and when we were going to launch.

It seemed like the world around me wanted Tenderfoot."

"There were other platforms out there doing similar work, for example, there's one called Handshake. Then there was AngelList. Tenderfoot was like if AngelList and Handshake had a baby — at least that was the idea!

I realized I needed a technical co-founder, but after struggling to find the right person right away I started building the platform on my own in Bubble.

I eventually hired a co-founder — solopreneurship can be a lonely journey — but due to visa issues he couldn't get back to the US. So Tenderfoot went temporarily on hold.

I needed to be doing something, so I turned my attention to new opportunities."

Getting into a NFTs through an unlikely opportunity

"My journey into the world of NFTs was quite random.

I created my own Twitter banner in Figma, and someone reached out offering to pay me to create one for them.

I think I charged him about $75 to make him a Twitter banner, and when he posted it, others noticed! They wanted banners too, so I made a Gumroad page and started selling my custom Twitter banners. For some reason, people really, really enjoyed them!"

🕷 Bob Bodily, PhD 👋 🕷 @BobBodily HUGE shoutout to @AprilynneA for the new Twitter banner. She did an amazing job. Went above and beyond to make it perfect. The metaphors go deep with this one. How do you see the Internet Computer in this image? I can think of 5-6 things but am curious what you all will see. 😀 pic.twitter.com/HPbArAOheU August 26th 2021 2 Retweets 26 Likes

"A couple of people recommended that I make an NFT collection from some of my Twitter art.

But — I knew nothing about NFTs.

I did some research, made a collection of 30 banners, and put them on OpenSea."

"Just to be clear, this was NOT a successful NFT collection!

Knowing what I know now, I would probably have done something different. I launched it and made four sales so it really wasn’t worth the time I spent designing it.

But I'm someone who likes to build in public and fail in public.

I made a video covering my journey in creating and launching my first NFT collection. I poured my heart and soul into this video. And it performed reasonably well.

Until day 9… That's when things really started taking off."

"I received 100 views in one day for that video — the most I had ever received in one day up until then! And then I received 200 views the day after, and 400 views the day after that. On day 14, I received my first 1000 views in one day.

Choosing a niche isn't always easy

"At this point, I was obviously ecstatic. I had a video blowing up! I had heard of this type of thing happening to others; now it was actually happening to me!

Except for one problem: The video was about NFTs.

I had hoards of people coming in saying they loved the video, this was the best NFT video they had seen on the internet, etc. But my niche wasn't NFTs!

I didn't want to become “The NFT Girl".

I had two options: delist the video, or make content about NFTs. After much thought, I decided to lean into NFTs.

I did some audience analysis and realized I could make content for both digital artists wanting to launch NFT collections, and tech-savvy NFT artists who know nothing about marketing.

My second NFT video started taking off as well, and it occurred it me that it had happened: I had struck gold! I had found my audience-creator fit!"

Monetizing YouTube

"Soon after consistently posting videos on NFTs, I got monetized! I was absolutely over the moon. And each day, I was making more and more money.

On the fourth day of being monetized, I made $110.25 in one day.

Finding some success on YouTube hasn't been without its struggles: the messages I get from viewers can be toxic. But I've devised a plan to keep myself sane and I'm feeling much, MUCH better.

It's been quite a journey, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the future."

​Read the full story.

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📺 Tutorials

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🧑‍🏫 Courses

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🚀 Community Projects

​Full Podcast Automation Tech Stack + Notion Template Operating System To Save 10 hours A Week!!, by Joe Wehbe.

"I built this entire automation and streamlined all my workflows in Notion as templates. The below video breaks it down in full and is time-coded to make things easier. If you're not already using Descript and Repurpose.io for your podcast I highly recommend it, it's hard to imagine a podcaster for who it's not useful!"

​NoCode Co-learning and Co-Building Space, by Areeb Mianoor

"Hi Guys, I'm Areeb, a product manager and edtech enthusiast. I just wanted to share something cool we're doing! I made a group of people who are interested in NoCode and Building in Public and will be launching test products over the next few months."

​No Code Operations Consulting For Agencies, by Dean Ginsberg.

"Hey! Does anybody know of no-code consultants who have experience building operations infrastructure for agencies?"

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💼 Jobs

​Growth Marketing & Revenue Ops – Topia

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🐦 Tweet of the Week

Easlo @heyeaslo No-code helps you build your startup 4x faster. I gathered the best no-code tools for startups. A thread 🧵 January 14th 2022 428 Retweets 2,049 Likes

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😍 Want to see your own story featured in this newsletter?

If you have a great story to tell that you think the no-code community would be inspired to read, we'll publish it on our blog and feature it in this newsletter. Submit an outline here.

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Cheers!
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Ben & the Makerpad team ✌️