Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, uploaded his first video to YouTube in February 2012, under the name “MrBeast6000”. He was 13 years old when he uploaded his first video. That video and his earliest content following it consisted of Let’s Plays, mainly focused on Minecraft and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
He started his YouTube career by creating videos that estimated the wealth of other YouTubers, as well as videos that offered advice to upcoming YouTube creators. He also provided commentary on the drama that was unfolding in YouTube’s creator community at the time.
One of his earliest notable video series was based on estimating the wealth of other YouTubers. He would use their subscriber count and other metrics to estimate how much money they were making from their videos.
In another series, he offered tips for upcoming YouTube creators on how to get more views and subscribers. He even shared advice on how to make it in the “YouTube drama” scene—a popular but controversial genre on YouTube that involves creating commentary videos about other content creators or famous people.
During his early days, Donaldson made very few appearances in his videos. This was because he was so young and self-conscious that he could not bring himself to appear in front of the camera.
MrBeast’s early YouTube career was not a big hit. He used to upload videos to his channel, then called “That-dude”, as early as July 2013. In this month, the subscriber count of “That-dude” was 240.
Gained Momentum – Worst Intros
In 2015, Donaldson began to gain a following on YouTube with his “worst intros” series of videos. His channel, MrBeast, was looking for a way to stand out from the crowd and make a splash.
Donaldson’s idea? Analyze YouTube to find some of the worst introductions possible and create videos that mocked them. He found plenty of examples, and people ate it up. The resulting videos were a hit, and his ever-growing subscriber count soared.
Mid 2016
The life of a YouTuber is not easy. It requires long hours, strange challenges, and constant attention to one’s own image. By fall 2016, Donaldson had hit 30,000 subscribers and decided it was time to make YouTube a full-time career. He left East Carolina University to focus on making videos for his growing audience.
His mother did not approve of this, and made him move out of the family home. After that, over many months,
Before striking gold with his channel, MrBeast spent many months attempting to understand the YouTube algorithm. Donaldson and his friends reached out to many YouTubers to get stats on their hit videos and predict the platform’s recommendation system.
He would then use this information to create videos that were more likely to become successful, resulting in them making quite a bit of money off of the site.
Though he didn’t find much success during his early career, get learned a lot during his early days. These lessons helped him to build his audience and net worth over time.