Case Study: Ali Abdaal’s Income Streams (From Dr. To YouTube)

Ali Abdaal is a well-known personality in the world of productivity and education.

He pursued his medical degree from the University of Cambridge and worked briefly as a junior doctor in the UK’s National Health Service. However, he is widely recognized for his contributions to the field of education through his YouTube channel, podcast, and courses.

His content focuses on productivity, learning strategies, and personal development. Ali’s goal is to help people achieve their goals and lead a fulfilling life through his teachings.

What makes Ali so great is his ability to take more complicated concepts and simplify them for you and me.

I’m not sure about you, but every time he releases a video, I tune in. It’s no secret that a lot of people are in the same boat as me because he made 4.5 pounds in revenue in 2023. You need a lot of eyeballs to do that.

So without further adieu, lets take a look at Ali’s sources of income, then we’ll talk about how they go hand in hand with one another.

What Are Ali Abdaal’s Income Streams?

Ali Abdaals income streams are interesting, lets dive into each one.

Google AdSense

23.4% – £51,498

A large amount of Ali’s income comes from YouTube Adsense. After creating 806 videos, he now has over 5 million subscribers and counting. His YouTube journey is one to admire.

He went from making singing videos when he first started, then transitioned into medical school content, to finally end up where he belongs, creating content about productivity.

It just goes to show that you just have to take action in order to eventually get where you want to be. If Ali never took the leap to do singing videos, who knows if he would be making the content he is today.

If you get an idea, you have to go for it. Even if it’s not the final destination.

PTYA Sales ($5k Product)

5k product – 26.3% – £57,818

2k product – 4.5% – £9,897

His second income stream is his course sales. He has a couple of different courses (which we will get into, but this one makes the most.)

The overall goal of the Part Time YouTuber Academy is to help people take their love for something and grow a YouTube channel around it, just like Ali was able to. Here’s the details of the course below.

Courses and Programs In The PTYA

1. Part-Time YouTuber Foundations ($1): This course is a starting point for beginner YouTubers. It covers basics like creating a channel, finding channel art, filming, editing, and publishing the first two videos. Interestingly, the $1 fee for this course is refunded if you publish the two videos, encouraging action and commitment.
2. Part-Time YouTuber Academy ($995): This is their flagship product, a comprehensive self-paced online course. It aims to teach everything needed to grow on YouTube, potentially saving months or years in the process. The course has been taken by over 3,000 students, including YouTubers who have reached over 100k subscribers.
3. Part-Time YouTuber Accelerator ($4,995): This is an advanced 12-month support package for creators who want to take their channels to the next level. It includes personalized feedback on 26 videos, daily office hours, Q&A sessions, 1:1 accountability support calls, and access to a private Slack channel for ongoing support.

Additional Information

• The academy has helped over 3,847 creators start and grow successful YouTube channels.
• The founder, Ali Abdaal, started his YouTube channel in 2017 and has grown it to over 4.5 million subscribers, generating over $4 million in revenue annually.
• They also offer a free YouTube Assessment Quiz to help you find the best starting point in their Academy based on your current experience with YouTube.

It’s important to note that to make this much money on a course like this, you should have a solid foundation in terms of how many people follow you. Ali waited until he had a big enough following to drop a product.

It’s ok to create the product before you get the audience, however, it was Ali’s deep experience in creating YouTube videos and growing an audience that allowed him to create such a good product. So whatever you decide to create a course on, make sure you’re an expert and have a lot of experience on that topic.

YouTube Sponsors

20.5% – £45,151

My YouTube channel makes over $130k each month from Adsense and sponsorships.

Our overall business revenue which includes courses, affiliate deals and products makes over $350k per month.

I started off with 0 views, 0 subscribers and $0 in revenue.

— Ali Abdaal (@AliAbdaal) July 4, 2022

Ads aren’t the only way you could make money on YouTube, you could also make money by getting sponsorships for your videos.

Sponsorships is where companies pay you a good amount of money (especially in Ali’s case) to mention them in your video.

The above tweet is a little bit of an older tweet, however, I’ve seen Ali explain that you have to be well-established to secure good brand deals. So when it comes to this income stream, be patient.

Affiliate Links

10.3% – £22,606

YouTubers tend to make recommendations. With 806 videos, Ali has made quite a bit of different recommendations. Whether it’s products, books, launching a course on skill share, and more.

With that being said it’s no surprise that 10% of his income comes from affiliate marketing.

The secret to being good at affiliate marketing is to recommend products you really use and like.

For example, I mentioned Skillshare as being one of Ali’s affiliate products. He recommends it because he makes passive income on courses he’s created in the past. They do a great job of pushing courses, instead of you doing all the work through marketing and content creation.

That brings us to his next income stream.

Skillshare Courses

10.1% – £22,272

You can take a look at all the courses Ali has posted on Skillshare here. As you could see, ever course he has created aligns with who he is.

He has courses on editing YouTube videos, productivity, learning, and typing speed.

If you have any specific skills, it can’t hurt to post a course on Skillshare.

Newsletter Sponsors

1.7% – £3,750

Starting a newsletter is crucial for creators, regardless of the frequency of its content.

This is because YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or whatever platform you could think of could get shut down at any time. That’s why it’s only right to take your audience on those platforms and get them over to your newsletter.

You could use a newsletter to promote content you put out (blog post or YouTube), or you could dedicate the newsletter to talk about a specific problem your audience may have.

With platforms like Beehiiv, there’s going to be more and more income opportunities as well.

By utilizing the boosts feature on beehiiv, you can earn money whenever someone subscribes to your recommended newsletters after subscribing to yours.

They also have a built-in ad feature that allows companies to now place ads within each of your newsletters.

The newsletter generates revenue from course sales, YouTube views, and other sources in addition to the $3,700 in sponsorship income.

Teaching Income (Creatorpreneur)

1.7% – £3,632

There’s a theme within these income streams, and that is education. It’s simply what Ali’s good at. However, it’s not only that he’s good at educating, he also knows the pain points of his audience. Why?

Simply because he’s put out 806 videos. When you put out that much content, you get plenty of questions from your audience. With those questions, you could easily create products or courses.

Course Overview

• Objective: The course aims to teach how to reliably scale up a creative side-hustle, build systems for sustainable growth, and avoid burnout while enjoying the journey.
• Founder’s Journey: Ali shares his experience of growing his YouTube channel from 0 to over 3 million subscribers, making over £100,000 ($130k) each month, with minimal weekly effort.

Key Challenges Addressed

• Passion vs. Chore: Transforming a passion project into a sustainable business without losing the joy and excitement.
• Growth and Consistency: Strategies to ensure consistent growth and content production despite other commitments.
• Income Stability: Making the creative side-hustle financially stable and scalable.

Course Content

• Business Principles for Creators: Applying business strategies, tools, and principles to creative endeavors.
• Modules and Lessons: The course includes 6+ hours of content across 40+ lessons, focusing on workflow improvement, cash flow management, and effective outsourcing.
• Practical Applications: Strategies for content creation, audience engagement, product/service monetization, and team building.

Additional Resources

• Creator Playbook: A Notion-based workbook with summaries and exercises.
• Bonus Lessons and Community Access: Additional content and a community for further learning and networking.

Teaching Income (Camera Confidence)

1.5% – £3,238

Last but not least, Ali’s last income stream is his course camera confidence. He has confidence on camera. I hate to go back to the 806 videos, but that will do it. So, it’s only right that he put out a course that goes over how to achieve that confidence.

Course Overview

• Objective: The course aims to teach how to reliably scale up a creative side-hustle, build systems for sustainable growth, and avoid burnout while enjoying the journey.
• Founder’s Journey: Ali Abdaal, the course creator, shares his experience of growing his YouTube channel from 0 to over 3 million subscribers, making over £100,000 ($130k) each month, with minimal weekly effort.

Key Challenges Addressed

• Passion vs. Chore: Transforming a passion project into a sustainable business without losing the joy and excitement.
• Growth and Consistency: Strategies to ensure consistent growth and content production despite other commitments.
• Income Stability: Making the creative side-hustle financially stable and scalable.

Course Content

• Business Principles for Creators: Applying business strategies, tools, and principles to creative endeavors.
• Modules and Lessons: The course includes 6+ hours of content across 40+ lessons, focusing on workflow improvement, cash flow management, and effective outsourcing.
• Practical Applications: Strategies for content creation, audience engagement, product/service monetization, and team building.

Additional Resources

• Creator Playbook: A Notion-based workbook with summaries and exercises.
• Bonus Lessons and Community Access: Additional content and a community for further learning and networking.

Ideal Candidates for the Course

• Income-Generating Creators: Those with a side hustle generating income but facing growth challenges.
• Serious Beginners: Hobbyists who are starting to make money and wish to scale their projects.

Not Suitable For

• Creative Newcomers: Individuals who haven’t started their creative journey yet.
• Creative Hobbyists: Those treating their side hustle purely as a hobby without plans for scaling.

Key Takeaways From Ali Abdaal’s Income Streams

You may want to start building up some income streams like Ali. However, it’s important to note a couple of important factors before getting started.

Know Your Niche

The initial and crucial step towards achieving success in any field is to identify your niche. By niche, we mean the specific area of focus where you can showcase your skills and expertise. It is essential to be in-depth, understand its nuances, and stay up-to-date with the latest developments. This will help you gain a competitive edge and stay ahead of the curve. By becoming fully immersed in your niche, you will have a better understanding of the needs and preferences of your target audience, thereby enabling you to provide tailored solutions that meet their requirements.

Ali is known mainly as the productivity guy. Just like by starting this blog, I want to be known as the income stream guy. Figure out what guy or gal you want to be, and dive in.

Side note: It might take you a few different niches before knowing exactly what niche resonates with you best. As I mentioned above, Ali started his channel as a singing channel, then medical school advice, then he finally found his forever niche.

Give Plenty Before You Take

Another thing is to give plenty before you take. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but I know Ali put out a very large amount of videos before he decided to put out a course. You have to put out so much value, that when you release the product your audience doesn’t second guess your intentions.

Focus On One Marketing Channel

Ali went all in on YouTube. This enabled him to get his newsletter subscribers, course students, Twitter followers, Instagram followers, and more. You can’t focus on all marketing channels at once. Build one that you have the most confidence in and then let the others build off of that audience.

Once the money starts coming in, like Ali, you could then put together a team of content editors so they could repurpose all of your content to suit different platforms.

This is important because every platform has slightly different user demographics.

If you try and release content on all platforms at the same time, the pieces of content may be “good” on each, but not “great”.

Make Things Fun

Ali just released a new book called “Feel Good Productivity“. The book emphasizes the importance of making productivity enjoyable and sustainable. In “Feel Good Productivity,” Ali explores the concept that being productive shouldn’t be a grueling or joyless endeavor. Instead, he suggests that the key to long-term success and personal fulfillment lies in finding ways to make productivity feel good and inherently rewarding.

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