Annagjid “Kee” Taylor is a celebrity stylist who now makes seven figures from what used to be her side hustle. She was working a salon job when she decided to quit to focus on content creation.
She became popular on Instagram by posting hair pictures and videos. But her followers wanted more than just pictures and 15-second videos on Instagram. She received several inquiries about whether she had a YouTube account where they probably thought she has uploaded longer versions of the videos she posts on Instagram.
“I didn’t know much about YouTube in 2015,” says told Time. “I was on Instagram and had gotten popular with hair pictures and videos. And so many people would be in my comments saying ‘Do you have a YouTube?’ This was back when Instagram videos were only 15 seconds long.”
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This led her to launch her own channel Deeper Than Hair TV inspired by Rick Ross’ 2009 album Deeper Than Rap. seven years down the lane, Taylor now has over one million subscribers and makes around $92,000 a month.
According to her, she was initially hesitant to embrace her current hustle because she felt longer videos will require he to reveal some of her trade secrets and the techniques she has used remained one of the favourites in the industry and landing celebrity clients.
“I was like, ‘I’m not getting a YouTube and sharing all my secrets with the world,’” she says. “It didn’t seem like a fit. I do silk presses all day. I don’t do enough styles where I felt like people would want to see me do the same thing over and over again.”
Her venture into video content creation started on a bumpy road. After one of her videos went viral, her account was suspended over suspicion that she was manipulating views. After submitting petitions against her suspension, it was lifted.
Taylor says she did not quit her regular job until she consistently recorded over 800,000 views per month. Today, 100 percent of her income comes from what started as her side hustle.
“I had two or three viral videos early on,” she notes. “When that was happening, I was getting a nice check, but I wouldn’t say it was enough to quit my day job. I wasn’t able to really quit my day job until I was consistently getting 800,000 to a million views a month.”
