The 24-year-old Imane “Pokimane” Anys is by far the largest streamer in the world. She explains how the business of Twitch really works. In the process, she dispels two major prejudices: Streamers live off donations and only play a little.
This is Pokimane: The Canadian with Moroccan roots has 5.35 million followers on Twitch, making her the only woman at the top. She has the fifth largest channel in the world. The next woman comes in at number 46. That’s the Australian Loserfruit with 1.83 million followers.
Pokimane has been on Twitch since 2013, initially playing mostly LoL. The big breakthrough came in 2018 with Fortnite, like many other now successful streamers. That year she gained nearly 2 million followers and became the most recognized woman on Twitch. There was a scene from Fortnite where she was hit on by a 12-year-old, which has since reached cult status.
At the moment, Pokimane is mainly active in Valorant and maintains contact with her fans in Just Chatting. When she is live, an average of 15,787 viewers watch her.
In a video (via YouTube), she gives YouTuber Graham Stephan insight into the business side of Twitch and her daily routine.
It’s all about deals, not donations
This is how the business model works on Twitch: Many viewers think that streamers primarily finance themselves through donations and paid subscriptions, the Subscriptions. But this path was never an option for Pokimane. From the beginning, she aimed for a stable income through her role as an influencer and thus as a brand ambassador for companies.
Pokimane says that as long as she depended on viewers donating to her, she didn’t want to commit to streaming as a career. She only saw it as a hobby alongside her studies in chemical engineering. Streaming brought in money, but it wasn’t a serious career option. It was only when Pokimane earned $10,000 in a month from advertising deals that she considered streaming as a full-time job.
She explains: At first, she accepted every deal with a brand as long as it didn’t conflict with her personal principles. She did not do anything associated with:
- Gambling
- Alcohol
- or sexually explicit content
Although those things were the best-paying, she would have declined those deals. However, Pokimane accepted nearly every deal in the first years that she could live with, as long as she considered the advertised product to be good.
“There came a point where I accepted a lot of deals to build my resume. It’s like working a job you don’t really like to get the job you really want.”
Pokimane
Her attitude has since changed. Pokimane says if a deal isn’t a clear “yes” anymore, then it’s a no. She apparently gets offers for deals almost daily and can freely choose which products to promote and which not.
What kind of deals are those? In 2018, Pokimane was featured in advertisements for HyperX. There she promoted a headset (via youtube).
In June 2019, for example, Pokimane made a sponsored video on YouTube for the mobile game Brawl Stars.
Mobile games seem to pay particularly well, as she explained back in 2019 (via loadout). Back then she said that while normal deals might bring in $5,000 (4,252 €), with mobile games they could be as high as $20,000 (17,010 €).
Mobile games pay as if they’re Bill Gates. But he’s dying and they need to spend all his money.
Pokimane, in 2019
Pokimane pays managers to coordinate the many employees
This is what a working day looks like: Many think that Pokimane is primarily the entertainer who holds her face in front of the camera for 6 hours a day and talks to fans. But in reality, the job consists of much more management work.
Pokimane explains that the main part of her work involves providing her growing number of employees with tasks and feedback. She hasn’t edited her YouTube videos herself for a long time; she has “editors” for that, whom she instructs on what kind of videos to make and how they should look. But even that became too much work over time. She now has a manager who oversees her video editors for her, but he also needs feedback.
Additionally, she has help with social media, a general manager who handles emails and business contacts.
She also now has a business manager who oversees her finances and pays the people who work for her. Because that is also time that Pokimane prefers to invest elsewhere.
Pokimane says she spends about $10,000 or $20,000 a month to pay her employees. She says that she could actually work around the clock. There’s always something to do.
What’s behind this: It’s evident that the public image of Twitch streamers is shaped by what viewers see live:
- The streamer thanks for donations and subscriptions – so it’s assumed that’s where their money comes from
- The streamer is also on air for hours like a normal workday – so it’s assumed that their job consists of that
In reality, streamers, at least at this high level, work more like CEOs of small to medium-sized businesses, of which they are also the figureheads.
While Ninja has apparently outsourced this part of his work mostly to his wife and manager, Jessica Blevins, the business-savvy Pokimane is much more involved in it.
Recently, Pokimane has been accused of making her money primarily by charming lonely men on Twitch to encourage them to donate. But that has clearly nothing to do with the actual business model:
The largest streamer on Twitch is said to be exploiting lonely men for money
