Pokimane Reveals How Much Her Operation Really Costs
Personal finance YouTuber Graham Stephan recently interviewed Pokimane about her streaming career. In addition to discussing the lightbulb moment when Pokimane knew she could make a career out of being a streamer, she also broke down the amount of work and money that goes into maintaining her channel and level of success. You may be surprised to learn that it costs a pretty penny for someone at Pokimane's level to maintain quality and consistency in her work.
In addition to the everyday expenses of running her channel, Pokimane revealed in the interview that she also has quite a few team members helping her out. Pokimane has a talent agent who isn't technically employed by her, but who represents her still and is paid by her. Pokimane also explained that, "for a really long time," she had a rotating team of editors who would be responsible for creating her YouTube videos on a case-by-case basis. After a while, the need arose to hire a full-time editor. More editors were brought on after that. Eventually, the operation grew to the point where Pokimane then needed to hire someone to manage all of her editors. She also has a social media manager to review everything that goes onto her YouTube channel, including the thumbnails for each individual video posted.
According to Pokimane, her hiring people to do some of the work doesn't mean she's not still heavily involved. This is just one of the ways in which Pokimane has been able to compartmentalize between her streaming life and her life at home. She explained to Stephan, "I still have oversight on everything, so I'm in all the conversations, but I have someone else actively giving that feedback. I try to be as hands-off as possible, so I can have any sort of a personal life or time to myself."
Pokimane also mentioned that she has hired a "manager in general" who acts as Pokimane's main liaison with other companies. This person is responsible for answering most emails about sponsor deals and the like, and executes other business tasks Pokimane needs taken care of, as well. And finally, she also has a business manager that takes care of the financial side of Pokimane's streaming operation. This includes calculating all of the overhead necessary to keep this thing going, as well as making sure that every person on Pokimane's team is properly paid.
So how much does this all add up to? Well, according to Pokimane, it can vary from month to month. Depending on what kind of promotion the streamer is running or what her schedule entails, the cost of running her business can change. However, it's pretty high, no matter which way you cut it. Pokimane told Stephan the amount that she spends on paying her staff ranges between $10,000 to $20,000 a month. As she put it, "Business expense, by far, is what I spend most of my income on."
Shortly after this figure was brought up and all of these various moving parts were listed, Stephan asked Pokimane if it ever gets stressful having to deal with so many things at once. She said that it definitely could be. As Pokimane told Stephan, streaming full-time doesn't necessarily equate to a regular work schedule or consistent hours. She said that it doesn't feel like a normal "9-to-5" job.
Because of all of the different things that need to be attended to, Pokimane said, "you have to kind of be ready to respond to things as they pop up."
Basically, there's a whole lot more than goes into Pokimane's streaming career behind the scenes than we ever knew. It's also worth noting that she's not alone in her need for a team. As a streamer or content creator's channel and brand grow in prominence, they usually need a lot more help to keep up. Ninja's wife, Jessica Blevins, works as his brand manager, taking care of his sponsorships and public relations. Even PewDiePie, who has been making YouTube videos for years, has an editor he works with on a consistent basis.
Streaming has become an industry in and of itself, so it's no surprise that there are all kinds of jobs for people within the streaming world. However, it's always a little shocking to find out what kind of money goes into making these streaming empires function properly.