I Left My Job To Start An Automotive YouTube Channel

I left my job to start an automotive YouTube channel. That still sounds weird to say out loud. I had someone ask me the other day where I work, and I couldn’t believe the words leaving my mouth when I said, “I make car videos on YouTube.” That doesn’t sound like a career — certainly not one that pays the bills. But here I am.

For most people, leaving their full-time government marketing job to chase their dreams on YouTube would be an ill-advised career move. The truth is, it’s an uphill battle for me too. There’s no health insurance, no retirement, no guaranteed paycheck. Most people would say: “Keep your full-time job and just ease into it. Maybe in a few years, you will be big enough to make it your full-time gig.”

I’m not most people: I have an ace up my sleeve. You see, I’m married to Alanis King. She has the relationships with manufacturers, the access to press cars, and the on-screen persona to keep viewers watching. For the past 10 years, I’ve worked in broadcast sports, made commercials for car dealerships, filmed weddings, and until recently, created videos for my local government. Our talents always existed in parallel spaces, but now it feels like our skills complement each other. She writes the scripts and I film and edit. She works with the manufacturers, I work on thumbnails.

To be fair, we didn’t start from nothing.

Around the summer of 2023, there were significant changes at my day job, and I realized that my days making videos for the government were numbered. Alanis and I filmed a few car videos for fun and uploaded them to YouTube. We started with a video comparing the C7 Corvette ZR1 to the C8 Stingray. Weirdly enough, people watched it. We tried again with a video about a 991.2 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. To my surprise, people watched that video too. The wheels were turning in my head.

“Can you really start a YouTube channel in 2024 and make a living?” I thought to myself. It seemed unlikely, because so many of YouTube’s success stories found that success years ago.

The more videos we uploaded, the more people watched. For the first time in years, I felt like my work was actually valuable. In February of this year, Alanis went through a job change and we doubled down on the YouTube content — scheduling a new car for review every week. First we had a Bentley Bentayga, then a Mazda CX-90, a manual Toyota Supra, a Honda Civic Type R, and a Lexus LC 500. By the time our Toyota Prius loaner showed up, I was packing up my government office.

One of my favorite videos we have made so far is “How I Got a Job in NASCAR With ZERO Experience.” Half joking, I asked Alanis back in December over some Everclear cocktails to find me a NASCAR spotting gig this upcoming season. She asked our friend Brad Perez if he’d let me spot at Circuit of The Americas, and our video idea was born. We had a great time at COTA standing on sketchy scaffolding and calling “left” and “right” over a radio. We even ate tacos and celebrated a top-20 finish after the race. It was the type of weekend that I hope to replicate a few times a year on the YouTube channel. Maybe it’s not spotting next time, but there are so many fun opportunities at a race track — all it takes is the right people to say yes.

Our goal isn’t to be the biggest stars on YouTube. I don’t need to own my own racetrack or a 30-acre drift compound. That kind of success isn’t realistic, and, to be honest, sounds like more effort than it’s worth. What I do find appealing about YouTube is that I have the opportunity to be my own boss; to make creative decisions and determine my own outcome. If I want to film a car on a Saturday morning, I can do that. If I want to edit videos at midnight on a Tuesday, I can do that. If I want to fly out to the Indy 500 for five days, I will most definitely be doing that.

I want to share some of my behind-the-scenes experiences with you all. I’m hoping that a few times a month, I can chime in here and show you what it’s like to start your own YouTube adventure from scratch. Some of the things we try will work, and some won’t. I think it’s important to try new things while the channel is young so we can determine what — and who — we want to be. I may tell you all about the business and what cars we are driving, but I will leave some things for the imagination. I’m using a pseudonym, after all.

I think that my aspirations on YouTube are similar to a lot of other car enthusiasts: working normal hours to make the ends meet and finally afford those new wheels for your shitbox Miata, doing a track day here or there, and being able to enjoy my passions without being worn out from the week. Most people won’t have the opportunity that I have; the access, the timing, and the convenience of being married to someone whose professional skills complement mine. But this isn’t without its challenges.

I want to be honest: Starting a YouTube channel is a financial disaster. We started uploading last July and got monetized in September. Until now, we have essentially made enough money to cover our household’s monthly Everclear budget. I bought a used Panasonic Lumix S5ii, some L-mount lenses, and a set of DJI wireless microphones to take our production up a notch. The purchase was necessary, but it easily put us in the red and wiped out any AdSense income we acquired. Looking at our growth, we should have 30,000 subs by the end of this year and 60,000 by the end of 2025. In 2026, we might be able to make a profit. The reality is that we need partnerships to make this work until then.

What does Dave Ramsey say? It’s going to be rice and beans for a while … but I’m not giving up the Everclear.