Liza Koshy, from Houston Texas to 25M+ subscribers and worldwide mainstream actress

Happy holidays everyone!

Whether you’re celebrating alone, with friends over Zoom or in-person with family, enjoy the time and really be present in whatever you’re doing. It is time to sit, reflect, and plan for 2021 (if you haven’t already)

That said, let’s just jump into today’s edition featuring one of my favorite creators and a fellow indian.

Meet Elizabeth Shaila Koshy aka Liza, also known as “little brown girl” on the internet (a self-given nickname).

Cue Beyonce…..Houston, Texas Baby

Elizabeth, more commonly known as just Liza was born in Houston, Texas to an indian father and german mother. Her father worked as a petroleum executive and her mother is a yoga instructor. She also has two older sisters, proving that the youngest sibling is always the loudest (I’m the youngest sibling too btw for any readers that don’t know me personally).

She grew up middle class in a modest home and started her career on Vine, the 6 second app that launched in 2013. Liza hopped onto the platform under the username “Lizzza” with three z’s and started posting her funny ideas to the platform. Here’s a compilation of her old vines and her reacting to it with her then boyfriend, David Dobrik.

Started From The Vine, Now We Here

On Vine, she would post comedic sketches. Because the app is a 6 second video limit, you had to pack a whole storyline into just a few seconds. Her first Vine was posted in early 2013 just a few weeks after the app launched.

At the time, she was attending Lamar High School in Houston and then shortly enrolled at the University of Houston majoring in business marketing in 2014. As a college student, she had a unique balance between studying for her general requirements and balancing making vines. She started getting some followers on the platform, but nothing that could justify a career. But she kept at it and kept uploading.

In late 2014, she started making some money for re-vining. Revining is when the creator reshares a certain piece of content to boost the reach of it. David Dobrik (shown above) also got his start on re-vining certain branded content and started making some money ($100-$1000) for re-vining content pieces.

In 2015, Koshy left college at the University of Houston and dropped out and moved to LA to pursue her career. That same year, she started her YouTube channel and started as the Little Brown Girl. This is her first video from July 2015.

Little Brown Girl on YouTube

In 2015-2018, Liza uploaded consistently creating multiple characters and skits around them, collaborating with big YouTubers and even joining the Vlog Squad for awhile before she started gaining national attention.

One of her most popular characters is called Jet Packinski, who is well basically a Justin Bieber lookalike that Liza dresses up as and makes jokes. She’s also created another character named Carlos and is almost infamous with the phrase “For a dollar” for her dollar store videos. You can check out a few of those below.

Liza Koshy as Jet

Liza as Carlos

Liza’s Dollar Store Video Series (over 150M+ views combined)

These videos are just a small sample of Liza’s ability to take her short-form comedy skits on Vine and extend them through to YouTube.

The format for Vine was recurring characters that would do a batch of a few videos and maybe have interaction between them here and there. That would work because each 6 second video would rack up views and loops as Vine had a model where once viewed, the video would loop back (similar to IG or TikTok) now.

But Liza didn’t stop with just these small format skits, she very quickly started branching out and diversifying her content and eventually even made the jump between platforms (away from YouTube).

A Star Is Born

Liza made the shift from Vine to YouTube pretty quickly but adapting her content took time, tribulation and multiple tries. Her early videos are not built for the ever elusive YouTube algorithm.

But over time, she found her stride and the YouTube following came. After a few years, she got the opportunity to interview celebrities at a small fashion show called the Met Gala.

From there, she made her mark by being a relatable and authentic human being with her content. People loved her for being real and talking about herself and also for putting out her #1 goal: acting.

Breaking into Mainstream

Liza has always said from her Vine days that she wanted to be an actress but there is this traditional divide. YouTubers were not seen as professional actors.

Now in 2020, we see the reverse because COVID has changed everything where actors like Will Smith, The Rock, Brie Larson and many more have turned to making YouTube videos, a platform that wasn’t really filled with celebrities who were working on big budget films.

But back in 2016, there were very few celebrities that took YouTube as a platform for creators and similarly casting agents did not look at YouTubers as a source for casting big movies. Liza was one of the few that actually made it into a big box movie along with a few YouTubers like fouseyTube, Lexy Panterra, JC Caylen and more.

From there, Liza was on a rocket ship, her growth on YouTube continued and she started collaborating with bigger and bigger names and then in 2017, she hosted Total Request Live (TRL for short). If you're old enough, you remember MTV’s heyday of having TRL with quirky hosts doing skits and shorts while also talking to big musicians. Her and her co-host brought the same energy for a new audience and thus began her hosting duties.

After a little over a year on TRL, she finished her contract with MTV and then got a massive deal as YouTube started doubling down on original content mainly by some of their biggest creators. As YouTube switched to original programming (on the heels of Netflix doing the same earlier in 2018), more and more YouTubers got their own shows aside from their YouTube channels. Think mass big budget sets, script writing teams, directors and getting paid to come up with concepts and execute.

For some, it didn’t work well because they basically had to give up some creative control to have access to a new audience. For others, they thrived. Liza was one of those big features and her show Liza On Demand was a hit and is still running as a YouTube Original 2-3 years after it’s launch. It follows Liza as the main lead and two other main characters on their escapades. Liza’s character is basically a taskrabbit person who gets paid to do odd tasks for people thru an app and pure hilarity ensues. It’s a must watch. Pilot below. And yes that’s Noah Schnapp in the backseat from Stranger Things.

After Liza on Demand, she’d star as the host of another show around her second love, dance. The show is called Floored and it premiered on Quibi, the short form vertical video content platform that had a promising idea but terrible execution. The idea was pretty cool.

A dance show where the dancers dance, but the floor moves around, goes up and down and has other interactions. A combination of WipeOut and dance shows, the concept was a great way to combine what people like to watch. Along with a relatable host who is extremely quick-witted in Liza, it became a featured show on Quibi.

But even Liza couldn’t save Quibi as it was quickly shuttered in late 2020 due to low subscriber count and the idea not seeing much traction amongst consumers. The good thing though is that all the creators on the platform got paid out properly, so Liza and every one else who worked on Quibi shows did get paid for their efforts despite the company shutting down in late 2020.

Money Talks

As you’ve probably seen by now, Liza has many different revenue streams. As a creator on Vine, she often did branded posts where a brand would pay her to make a vine with their product. After a few small scale brand deals, she dropped out of college, moved to LA to pursue being a full-time content creator.

YouTube proved lucrative for Liza as after a few years of posting consistent content and gaining a huge following, brands would pay her for some sponsored videos.

From there, the Quibi show along with mainstream movies are her other two main sources of income on top of recurring revenue in the form of YouTube ad revenue.

According to Socialblade, her last 30 days (as of this writing) have seen her get almost 14M video views and while YouTube ad revenue is relatively shrouded in mystery, the estimates below are probably conservative at best.

So, from YouTube ad revenue, she probably makes $3.4K-55K and on a yearly basis, that equates to $40K-660K. Again, these estimates are not exact but as one of the highest creators on the platform and a creator that makes very family friendly content, these are definitely believable ranges. Even at the lowest end of the range spectrum, it makes sense why she is a full-time content creator.

Outside of ad revenue, the brand deals, sponsorships, and branded posts make her someone who has diversified her income streams from the start and has figured out a way to be authentically herself and still get paid for her art.

Interviewing & Collaborating with Celebrities

As mentioned she’s hosted the Met Gala and also interviewed two presidents. Something that most people don’t get to do let alone mainstream celebrities. It’s a win-win when you think about it for both parties. Liza gets to achieve a life-long dream and the president reaches an audience that they couldn’t otherwise.

And President Obama got to meet Liza Koshy! I mean how many people can say that?

But she’s not just about interviewing folks who have been in the White House, she’s also a friendly face for all who want to become YouTubers. She’s collaborated with big names like David Dobrik, the vlog Squad, Will Smith, Gabbie Hanna and many many more.

One of my favorite collaborations she’s done is with the one and only Fresh Prince, Will Smith. They’ve made a few Instagram and YouTube videos together and Liza recently signed a deal with Westbrook Inc., the company co-founded by Jada and Will Smith. If you’re wondering what the deal includes and why they co-founded the company, it’s because there are talks to do a Fresh Prince reboot, a feature film and much much more.

While those projects are in talks and pre-production, the instagram videos they’ve made are absolutely amazing and totally worth checking out. @westbrook routinely collaborates with Will on make effect videos and bringing Liza in for a few just makes them all the more better.

So, what’s Next for Liza?

Well, only time will tell. She has uploaded a few more YouTube videos to her channel this past week (here’s one from 2 days ago) and she also has a 2nd channel that boasts over 8M subscribers.

As a bonafide creator on YouTube and now with a few mainstream shows under her belt, only time will tell what is next for Liza Koshy.

You can check out her YouTube channel below:

Lil Brown Girl Out.

This is the seventh edition of the Creator’s Digest.

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