More than a year ago, Nischa Shah, a once-high-flying investment banker in London, took a bold career move. Ms. Shah gave up her six-figure job after ten years in the corporate world to work full-time as a YouTube content creator. Her risk paid off, resulting in four times the success and a renewed feeling of fulfilment. Nischa Shah made approximately $256,000 (around ₹ 2 crores) a year working as an investment banker and holding the position of associate director at Credit Agricole in London in 2022. Ms. Shah wanted a more fulfilling profession because she felt dissatisfied with this paid role.
Around her ninth year in banking, Ms. Shah realized her job was neither “challenging” nor “intellectually stimulating”. “I wanted to find a way to help other people whilst getting paid for it and what I was doing in banking was helping corporations, sovereign governments,” she told CNBC.
In January 2023, Ms. Shah left her high-paying job to become a full-time content creator on YouTube, focusing on personal finance. Her gamble paid off, and between May 2023 and May 2024, Ms. Shah made over ₹ 8 crore through YouTube monetization, selling courses and products, doing corporate talks and partnering with brands.
Nischa Shah created an emergency fund when she launched her YouTube channel so that, if she lost her work, she could live on for at least nine months. She felt empowered to take the risk and devote herself to her interests full-time after receiving this grant.
Ms. Shah admitted that it would have taken her longer to leap if she had waited until she was well-off from YouTube. Rather than backing herself with a safety net—her emergency fund—she went all in. “Take my life in my own hands and just go for it,” she said, viewing it as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”.
The popularity of Ms. Shah on YouTube took some time to manifest. A video describing her life as an investment banker went viral in September 2022, rapidly getting her 50,000 subscribers and earning her over ₹ 3 lakhs. It took her 11 months to reach 1,000 subscribers, but that was a turning point.
Videos by Nischa Shah address a variety of subjects, such as “7 Passive Income Ideas” and “How to Invest Your First $1000” in addition to “Money Habits Keeping You Poor”. Her videos have garnered between one million and nine million views, solidifying her reputation as a reliable authority in the personal finance industry.