Rich Dudes│YouTube Star Blippi Has a $75 Million Net Worth

Stevin John is one of the highest-paid YouTube stars and made his fortune from his show, Blippi. If you have young kids, you may know the orange-suspenders-and-bow-tie-wearing man who has far too much energy for an adult. His enthusiasm has earned the veteran a lot of money—the American children’s entertainer makes upwards of $9 million a year just from YouTube.

How does a YouTube star like Stevin John invest their money? Let’s take a look at where the veteran turned children’s educator puts his money and how he turned his YouTube income into a net worth of $75 million.

Blippi net worth at a glance:

Stevin John was born in 1988 and grew up in the countryside in Ellensburg, Washington. He joined the United States Air Force before moving to LA to work in media and advertising. He studied filmmaking and started to make videos as a gross out comedian known as Steezy Grossman.

In 2014, Stevin John created the Blippi show after he spent time with his two-year-old nephew and saw the limited options for children’s content on YouTube. Today Blippi is an education platform for toddlers that can be found on many streaming sites, including Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon video.

The Blippi character is known for his blue and orange beanie cap, blue shirt, and childlike energy. These videos are not only entertaining for kids, but teach them valuable lessons about numbers, colors, shapes, the alphabet, and more. The first Blippi video was filmed and edited by Stevin John, but as his show’s following grew to over a billion views, he expanded his Blippi team to include a Spanish version, Blippi toys, and DVDs.

Blippi's franchise grew to be worth millions in just a few short years—Moonbug Entertainment acquired the YouTube channel in 2020. The size of the deal was not disclosed, but given that the company raised $120 million to purchase the show along with another kid’s show, Cocomelon, it was likely in the tens of millions. Stevin John remains on the show, but another actor was added to also play John’s Blippi character.

Most of Blippi’s net worth is from his YouTube income, but he invested a large portion of his wealth into stocks, real estate, and some bonds. Based on publicly available information, we estimate that 35% of his portfolio is in real estate, with 61% in stocks and 4% in bonds.

Blippi also owns several cars, such as a BMW X8 and Mercedes-Benz C-class. Since these assets have depreciated in value since they were bought, we aren’t considering them investments in this analysis.

Blippi's real estate investments

Blippi has purchased a few homes over the years. Today he owns a home in Los Angeles that he purchased in 2020 for $2.8 million, which is worth an estimated $5 million today. He also owned a home in Las Vegas that he sold in 2020 for nearly $700,000.

He also has single-family rental properties in the Washington area. We don’t know the exact number of properties, but some reports have estimated it’s around five. Taking into account the going price of about $500,000 for a three-bedroom, one-bath in Des Moines, Washington, that would give an estimated value of $2.5 million.

Besides real estate, Blippi owns at least two yachts. We don’t know exactly which type of yachts he owns, but he did post a Blippi video in 2020 exploring a yacht. Assuming he owns that yacht or two yachts of similar size, and that they cost around $350,000 to $500,000, his yacht investments are worth an estimated $1 million.

But buying real estate does have a large upfront cost. That’s why platforms like Elevate Money and Equitymultiple make it easy to become a landlord without having to do any heavy lifting.

With Elevate Money, you can buy fractional shares of single-tenant commercial properties, giving you predictable cash flow. Equitymultiple, on the other hand, gives accredited investors the chance to invest in high-yield, professionally managed properties.

Blippi's stock investments

Stevin John hasn’t mentioned all the stocks that he owns, but multiple sites have reported that a large portion of his portfolio is in tech stocks. He has an estimated portfolio of around $15 million. While this exact estimate is unconfirmed, it does match up with what we know about his estimated net worth and his revenue from YouTube ads.

Based on our estimates, we think roughly 61% of John’s portfolio is invested in stocks, which makes his investments more in line with a 60-40 traditional investing portfolio. With an estimated 58% of the U.S. population investing in stocks, it’s not a surprise that John invests so much in the stock market.

In fact, investing in stocks and ETFs is one of the easiest ways to invest, although it does come with risk. With investment platforms like Public, you can buy fractional shares of stocks, ETFs, and even alternative assets like a Banksy artwork.

Blippi's bond investments

Besides real estate and stocks, Stevin John also invests in bonds. In 2022, he earned an estimated $1 million in interest alone from government bonds. While we don’t know exactly what type of bonds he invests in, but he does earn enough from his YouTube channel to invest a large amount in bonds.

Since we don’t know the type of bonds Blippi invests in, it’s difficult to determine exactly how much they are worth. Instead, we are assuming they are worth $1 million, which would mean he invests at least 4% of his net worth in bonds, but the amount could be more.

While Stevin John doesn’t talk a whole lot about his investments, we can get a sense of his possible investing strategy from how he runs his business. In general, his approach is to invest in things that are high-quality and have a track record. If it’s working, he’ll continue to throw time and money at it until it stops growing.

He also understands the value of owning your own brand and trying to own the biggest players in the field. Having control of your own brand or another large brand allows you to have total control. And of course, always do your own research to learn about your investments and other players in the market.

Be patient

Doing anything takes time. Whether that’s investing in stocks, creating a YouTube channel, or starting a business, you need to have a bit of patience. Success and wealth don’t grow overnight.

Spend your time researching, finding out everything you can about investing, stocks, or undiscovered companies so that when you have the capital to invest, you’re already prepared.

Invest in brands

One of the things that helped Stevin John when he was starting out was to focus on his brand. Branding can have a lot of potential. If it’s not a business today, it could be in the future. One way to invest like Blippi is to focus on finding up-and-coming brands that have the potential to become large businesses, such as startups.

Be in control

One thing that Stevin John learned early on in his YouTube career was the importance of being in control. And that often means owning as much at the top as you can. If you can’t own a platform yourself, invest in companies that are higher up. A company that has a diversified portfolio like GE, for example, is likely to have less volatility than a startup.