Caspar Lee was just a teenager when he began uploading videos to YouTube, never imagining the path would lead to million-dollar success.
The now 31-year-old opened up about his journey in a new interview with The Times of London, sharing how his passion project turned into a career that changed his life.
Recalling starting to make YouTube videos at 16, Lee shared he didn’t think of as a business. “I just thought, this is a cool thing and I want to try to build it up as big as I can,” Lee recalled.
“When I was 18, I asked my parents if I could take a year off before going to university and do YouTube full time. At that point I had two or three thousand pounds in my bank account.”
That leap of faith paid off. As he continued posting content and grew his fanbase, Lee found himself in the right place at the right time.
“I was fortunate to be part of [a] group of YouTubers in the right place at the right time, and the audience and figures grew,” he said.
“I managed to interview Ed Sheeran, Kevin Hart [and] Dwayne Johnson. I turned my YouTube channel into a talk show. I think nearly 10 million people saw the Ed Sheeran video — that was when things really took off.”
“By the time I was 21, I’d made my first million,” he revealed.
Despite hitting that financial milestone early, Lee stayed grounded, and realised that making “more money doesn’t incrementally make you more happy.”
“Even though I made an extreme amount of money quickly, I didn’t know how long it would last.”
Mindful of his financial future, Lee approached money with caution.
Sharing that he doesn’t “get a buzz from spending”, Lee revealed investing his money.
“I can’t really see a time when I’ll stop working. You never know what’s going to happen with global politics or economics, so I hope to have a diverse portfolio of investments that will keep me going,” he said.
“My venture fund has been incredible. I’ve invested a lot of my personal money into that.”
