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- Lifestyle, beauty and fashion YouTuber Seithati Letsipa is making waves in the YouTube content creation industry.
- After a family loss, the 31-year-old had to leave her aviation career with Qatar Airways.
- Today, with over 45 000 subscribers, Letsipa made it onto YouTube's Creator Class of 2023.
- For more stories, visit the Tech and Trends homepage.
"If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off, and try again."
This is a message that resonates with popular South African YouTuber Seithati Letsipa, who had a successful aviation career, lost it all, and found greener pastures in content creation.
The lifestyle, beauty and fashion vlogger and Instagram content creator left her career as a flight attendant and tried her luck on YouTube.
Today, with over 45 000 subscribers on the platform, she makes a good living and has been nominated for local and international awards.
But Letsipa had no idea that she was cut out for this.
She told News24:
Unfortunately, Letsipa's flourishing career in Doha would soon come to an end after she learned that her mother was not doing well back home.
Leaving Qatar Airways to care for her mother
"I was living my best life. I came back home for leave, and that's when I saw that my mom was sick. My leave was ruined. I was a mess.
"After I went back to Doha, [I realised that] the end is near, and nothing would make me happier than to be here when everything happens," she said.
While taking care of her ailing mother, the 31-year-old had no other career prospects and decided to learn how to do make-up.
She registered for a four-month beauty course in 2018, but this venture, too, would come to a halt after her mother's passing.
"It was a lot. It was my worst nightmare," Letsipa said.
With little courage to do anything, the former flight attendant spent the whole of April in bed and started taking bookings for her make-up side hustle.
More clients came in and Letsipa started to recover emotionally.
In that same year, she launched her YouTube channel.
According to Letsipa, it grew very slowly during its early days because her content lacked originality.
"My strategy was doing what big YouTubers were doing. It wasn't landing because it wasn't me," she said.
While struggling with her channel, Letsipa tried to get a job as a flight attendant again, this time in South Africa. Fortunately, she was employed by Mango, but couldn't work due to the pandemic and many other obstacles.
This pushed the content creator to pursue a YouTube career as one of her videos – a moving vlog – started bringing more subscribers.
"In 2021, we moved to the east of Johannesburg, so I could be closer to work. During the move, I decided to film a 'Move with Us' and 'Apartment tour' [vlog], and people seemed to like that.
"This time, I wasn't imitating anyone. I didn't want subscribers. It was just me storing memories. That's when people started coming to my channel," she told News24.
READ MORE | Downshifting: why people are quitting their corporate careers for craft jobs
Letsipa grew from over a thousand to 2 000. Two days before her birthday, she got monetised. By the time she got retrenched from her job in October 2021, her channel had gained momentum, with over 5 000 subscribers.
The next stop was to get nominated for the YouTube Black Programme. After getting rejected in 2022, Letsipa made it onto YouTube's Creator Class of 2023.
Having struggled to get equipment, Letsipa used the funds from the programme to buy a camera, lighting equipment and a laptop – making content creation much easier.
Letsipa said it would have been difficult to be where she was had it not been for the support she received from her husband, who she recently married after more than seven years together.
Word to aspiring YouTubers
Letsipa's message to those aspiring to start their own YouTube channel is to get on with it and not overthink.
"Start today. I was supposed to start way before 2019, but [not having equipment] ended up being my excuse," she said.
"When I started this channel, I didn't think I'd be the woman that I am today. God will find you where you are, and He will take you to places that you never even dreamed of."
