ItsJudyLife | YoutubeIn this series, YouTube Icon, Entrepreneur speaks with the individuals behind popular YouTube channels to find out the secrets of their success.
Keeping a popular YouTube channel going is a full-time job on its own. Judy Travis maintains not one but three channels, all while raising her three young children.
The Seattle-based vlogger got her start doing beauty and fashion tutorials, which she still does for her more than 1.3 million subscribers on ItsJudyTime. With her husband, Benji, Judy also chronicles the ins and outs of her family’s daily activities for more than 1.5 million fans on the ItsJudysLife channel. On the third channel, ItsMommysLife, she shares parenting stories and advice for more than 370,000 subscribers.
What started as a hobby in a college dorm has grown into a business with partnerships with brands such as Blue Apron, ThredUp and Walgreens. Travis is developing a signature cosmetics-bag line for the retail giant, with designs inspired by her Filipino heritage.
Travis shared her insights about the passion required to truly make YouTube your career.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you get your start with YouTube?
In 2008 I was a psych major at the University of Washington. I stumbled upon a makeup tutorial by Michelle Phan, and I was amazed. I went home and I was curling my hair in my boyfriend’s room. I just stacked some shoe boxes and I put his little handheld camera in the corner of the window and I just started recording. That was my very first YouTube video.
I wish I hadn’t, but I may have deleted it two years ago because I was so embarrassed by it. I didn’t look at it then like I do now. This is my work, but then it was just a hobby. I started doing beauty videos, but it wasn’t so much from a professional standpoint, it was just kind of the girl next door showing you how I do my makeup.
A year or two later, I entered the YouTube partnership program and started looking at it more seriously….
