Lauren Riihimaki, known to millions online as LaurDIY, has been a creative force on YouTube for over a decade. Back in 2011, feeling creatively stifled by her university courses, she did what many of us did: She started a blog. That blog quickly evolved into a YouTube channel, and 14 years later, Riihimaki has built a digital empire with over 8 million subscribers, plus millions more following along on Instagram (4.3M) and TikTok (2.2M).
Over the years, her content has grown far beyond DIY tutorials on YouTube. In 2020, Riihimaki became the host and executive producer of the HBO Max series Craftopia, and today she’s expanding her influence as both a content creator and entrepreneur, with new brand ventures, including one launching later this year. Still, she hasn’t lost touch with her original fanbase, using emerging platforms like TikTok to reintroduce her creativity to a new generation.
Ahead of VidCon 2025 (July 19–21 in Anaheim, California), I sat down with LaurDIY to discuss her decade of content creation, what she’s learned, and her advice for today’s rising creators.
Credit: Zooey Liao/ Image Credit: @LaurDIY
Mashable: Do you remember your first viral video?
LaurDIY: There was this super trendy DIY tutorial that involved cutting a skull face into the back of a T-shirt. It was one of the very first ones that really got some traction. [Before that], I didn’t ever have a video that blew up overnight, but that was the first one that was the outlier in that.
You said it wasn’t overnight, but did that video change your approach to creating content?
Not necessarily. I think it definitely just affirmed that people were looking for more comprehensive tutorials versus a blog tutorial on DIY projects that I was doing.
It affirmed the consistency that I was putting into creating content on a weekly basis. But outside of that, it was all so foreign that I wasn’t like, “Oh, now I know what to do in this next stage of this plan.” I was so early in [my] content creation journey that I was just like, “This is wild.”
You’ve been making videos for a long time. How do you still find inspiration for your videos?
Now, because there are so many creators and so many niches and formats, I would say honestly that other creators are a huge source of inspiration. There are a handful of photographers that I follow as well. I’ve recently gone on a bit of a journey, learning a little bit more about storytelling and content from a cinematic perspective.
And it’s like, what can I learn from someone who might not be in my niche but has mastered something and shares their own tutorials, like how to achieve a certain angle for a shot? Then I can include [that] in my own video. So, it’s pulling the expertise from other creators in a variety of genres across the internet because there really is a corner for every interest.
Do you have any favorite creators right now who you’re finding inspiration from?
Gawx is someone on YouTube, [and] every piece of content he makes is so insanely mind-blowing. It really inspired me. His filmmaking is from such a DIY perspective. I absolutely can push myself to produce something in a cooler, more interesting, more intense way [like] he does.
[Other creators Riihimaki is inspired by at the moment include Jake Frew, Life of Riza, and Tammy (Uncomfy).]
How long would you say it took to see significant growth on your channel?
I essentially made content consistently throughout my university career, [and] after three years, before I graduated, I had been making a full-time income.
You know my parents had helped [me] through university, and so I really wanted to see it through and finish. So, technically, from a financial perspective, I could have gone full-time after two years, but I had one last year, and I would say that I was in a good groove of balancing the full course load and also making content. And so I’d come this far throughout my degree, that I wanted to finish it out. When I graduated, I was very much like, “OK, wow, I have so much time in the day to dedicate to full-time content creation.”
Was it in that senior year that you realized you could turn it into a full-time career?
Yeah, definitely. There were a handful of brand deals that I did in that senior year of university where I was like, “There’s no world where I’m going to go into an entry-level position in the job industry that I had gone to school for, where I would be making more than I am through content creation.”
It was so great to be financially independent so much earlier than I anticipated in my life. I’ve been working since I was 15, so I feel like my parents have really helped me understand the value of money. I’m very frugal, and I love feeling very stable, so to be financially independent so much earlier than I anticipated was so freeing and also motivating. I was like, “I have the best job in the entire world. I am so lucky. Like, what would ever stop me from pursuing this full-time?”
I scooped ice cream. I was a server for years. I’ve been in the trenches in those starter jobs when you’re 15 and 16. So, having this be my full-time job now, I have all this valuable perspective.
That actually leads into my next question, which was, how did you get your first brand deal? And how does it differ from your brand deals today?
So, I’m still with the same management from a decade ago. Scott Fisher, before it was called Select Management, he and I were working together when we were both in the Toronto area.
He secured me my first brand deal. It was to promote the movie Divergent when the very, very first one came out. And I was like, “So, you’re telling me that I’m just going to talk about how I loved the movie, and I had read all the books, too? ” Of course, I would do this for free.
And I would say that, to be honest, outside of the scale of the partnerships and the brands that I’ve been able to work with, not that much has really changed in that landscape. Obviously, I would say things have gone in the direction of short-form brand deals in recent years, but outside of the actual transaction of what a brand deal is, at its core, I would say that things are incredibly similar.
That’s so nice that your first brand deal was so natural rather than forcing yourself through an ad-read.
I’ve been really lucky to work with some incredible brands and to also be able to have my say in which brands I work with. I have always been aligned with the content that I’m making and the brand that I’ve built for myself.
And along those lines, what does monetization look like for you today?
I would say brand deals are the majority [of my income] right now. I do some angel investing in startups on the side as well. Maybe eventually, if all things go well, those will move into the majority category, but obviously, those are high-risk investments.
Brand deals have gone up, and AdSense has gone down, unfortunately. That’s just the reality of the platform as it’s grown. I would say that the creator partner program with TikTok has also gone up.
I’m also launching a dog brand in the fall. So that’s been more of a “spend the money now and hopefully grow the brand later” strategy, but it’s also another category of potential revenue for the future.
Across all of your platforms, do you have one that’s been the most crucial in growing your audience?
Because I’ve been a creator for so long, the algorithm on TikTok has been incredibly helpful for me in terms of resurfacing my content and brand to people and an audience who may have been familiar with my content in the past.
Maybe [the audience] aged out because I also had a huge content pivot, maybe five or six years ago, where I stepped away from being so family-friendly and became more authentically myself. You wouldn’t catch me cursing 10 years ago on YouTube, and so now things are just more authentic. A large chunk of my audience probably aged out of my content and has now reconnected. We’re in totally different stages of our lives now. I planned a wedding, I got married, I went on a honeymoon, and now we’re talking about fertility. So, it’s just a totally different era of our lives.
I think TikTok has been really crucial for me in terms of resurfacing my content, and it’s been amazing to see people say, “Wow, I used to watch you when I was so much younger, and I love your content now, too.” It’s a really nice, full-circle moment.
I’ve encountered that as a viewer, too. I lost touch with the creators I followed on YouTube in high school, but rediscovered them through other platforms a decade later.
To your point, even the amount of time that people have to give to a 25-minute vlog versus a 90-second TikTok lets you still feel very connected to that creator. From a creator’s perspective, I want to make sure that I’m offering both of those formats.
I know that some people love to listen to a 25-minute vlog while they’re folding their laundry or driving to work, but if I’ve got five minutes, I’m just scrolling TikTok, and I’m not going to open a full vlog. So I understand there are different needs from an audience member now in terms of the time they’re able to allocate to a creator.
Speaking of the fan relationship, VidCon is almost here. I’d love to know your experience with VidCon in the past and what you’re looking forward to this year.
VidCon is an incredible weekend. Because so much of the creator and audience relationship is digital, it is always incredible to be able to see and meet people at such a large in-person event.
If someone were to have 10,000 subscribers, and say you end up meeting a hundred of those 10,000 subscribers at VidCon, the scale feels so much more real. When you’re in that physical state of meeting someone, the connection is just different, and it’s incredibly valuable. If someone says, “I love your videos,” and you get to actually thank them in person, [it’s] really, really valuable from a creator perspective.
I haven’t been to VidCon since pre-COVID, so I’m excited to see how it’s changed. This year, with a new brand launching, I’m also thinking about the B2B [business-to-business] play because, as you know, the creator industry has become more valuable and has shown that there’s real selling power behind creator brands.
Has there ever been a moment when you really felt like, “Oh, I’ve made it as a content creator?”
There are a handful of different levels that you hit. I think for the early generations of creators, there wasn’t a path paved for what this was going to look like as a career. And so every time I felt like I leveled up, I was like “Oh my god, this is it. How much better could this get? This is the dream job.”
Being financially independent and having a little team around you to support you, whether that be an entertainment lawyer, a manager, or an assistant, and having people helping you to make content, you feel like a little mini production company. Those are the very first steps of being like, “Wow, I feel like an established creator with a content business.”
From a more personal perspective, when I got the opportunity to host two seasons of the HBO Max show Craftopia, it felt like everything that I had done online, on YouTube, on social media had led me to that opportunity. That felt like one of those moments where I was like, “Wow, this is such a wild integration crossover of digital and traditional media.” It just felt so validating that what I had built as a DIY creator and social media content creator had come to fruition to this level of opportunity.
Do you have any advice for someone who’s starting out with content creation?
The number one thing, and honestly, it’s a question that I pose to myself all the time, is, “What am I offering?”
So, whether it be entertainment, relatability, comfort, or educational information, it’s about what you are offering with your content. When you’re in the creation or brainstorm process, having that question at the forefront of your process is so helpful to give you purpose and help shape even just the hook and the delivery. It can help give you some guardrails because it’s so great that there are so many corners and so many niches. You can make [any] content, and there’s going to be an audience for literally anything that you want to make. Using that question at the forefront of your process can be really helpful and give you that guiding light.
And that’s not to say that you have to stay in one lane of content. It’s just about what you’re offering.
