"Paid Self-Fulfillment": Alex Schäfer on the Journey from Corporate to Full-Time Auto YouTuber "CarRanger"
"Happy Bootstrapping" Volume #48
Alex Schäfer is 35, from Thuringia, Germany, and worked at a large corporation for 16 years. Since fall 2025, he’s been living full-time from his YouTube channel CarRanger – 229,000 subscribers, everything about cars, from €2,000 used cars to €200,000 new vehicles.
The remarkable part: He’s never been invited to a press event by BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, or Opel. A deliberate consequence of his philosophy. A story about authenticity, the long game, and why the cheapest videos are sometimes the most successful.
This is a summary of Episode 159 of the “Happy Bootstrapping” Podcast (German).
NEW: The Episode is on YouTube as Full Video Episode (still in German):
The Founding Story
The path to CarRanger doesn’t begin with videos, but with a used car problem. Alex and his co-founder Claudio knew each other from university and had spent years buying, driving, and selling cars – realizing the used car market is unfair. In 2017, they founded a company with a service in between. The videos were originally just meant to promote that service.
Then came a problem: A competitor backed by Allianz with TV advertising. “They burned through eight figures. So what? Venture capital,” Alex recalls. The service was discontinued – but Alex was already so invested in the videos that he just kept going. Not for the clicks, not for the money. Because it was fun.
“It took me nine months for the first 100 subscribers. Of those 100, probably 50 were cold outreach in my friend circle. Like: Give me your phone for a second – and boom, subscribed.”
The breakthrough came slowly. In 2019, he could first buy equipment from the revenue. In 2020, he had a full-time cameraman. When that person left, he realized: Revenue stays the same, expenses drop. That’s when it became a business case.
The Product and Business Model
CarRanger tests everything with four wheels – old cars, new cars, used, brand new. The motto: “Everything that moves you.” Alex produces two to three long-form videos per week plus a daily Short. 99 percent alone, all one-take – with slip-ups, stumbles, and hoods that won’t open properly.
The business model: roughly 50:50 between YouTube ad revenue and selected advertising partners. But here’s what’s special: Alex doesn’t take money from car manufacturers for videos.
“I’m not going to be the rich asshole who ripped everyone off. I’d rather have €2,000 less and be a reasonably content person who can still look at himself in the mirror.”
The consequence: From BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Opel, Peugeot, Cupra – never invited to a press event. At 228,000 subscribers. He just gets the cars another way.
Marketing and Growth
Growth on YouTube is not a linear process. Alex describes it as waves – sometimes nothing happens for months, then comes a push. A video about a Dacia world premiere, filmed in 20 minutes between appointments, brought 650,000 views. One of his most successful ever. Videos with lots of love and effort? Sometimes only 10,000 views. “You didn’t even earn back the gas money to get there.”
The biggest insight: Some things you have to accept rather than try to understand. Otherwise you’ll go crazy. What works is consistency – a Short every day, at least two long videos per week, for eight years without a break.
Old content keeps working: A video about a Russian Bukhanka from years ago still brought 63,000 views and €482 in 2024. Alex is building an automobile catalog – eventually a self-running retirement fund.
Challenges and Philosophy
After 16 years in corporate, the switch in fall 2025 wasn’t a spontaneous decision. Alex first reduced from 40 to 30 hours, ran that parallel for two years. Then the complete exit – with eight years of YouTube experience and knowing what he could rely on.
The biggest challenge: Time. With two jobs, family, and wanting to do justice to everyone, he hit 80 hours per week. That was unhealthy. Today he only does CarRanger – and it doesn’t feel like work.
“People give me money to do what I’d want to do anyway. Right now I’m just lucky that people pay me for my hobby.”
Alex deliberately avoids scaling. No head of content, no big production. The one-man-show has a reason: satisfaction over maximum output.
What I Learned in This Interview
The first 100 are the hardest: Nine months for 100 subscribers, half of them friends. Anyone who pushes through that has the right motivation – enjoying the work itself, not chasing clicks.
Authenticity has a price – and a value: No manufacturer payment means no press events. But also no obligation to sugarcoat cars. Viewers pay with their time – Alex is accountable to them.
Old content is a pension: Videos from years ago keep generating revenue. A catalog of thousands of videos becomes a self-sustaining income source.
Learnings for Founders
Decide early who pays you: Viewers or clients. Doing both authentically rarely works.
Consistency beats perfection: Eight years without a break, content every day. That builds reach – not the perfect single video.
The cheapest videos can be the most successful: 20-minute slot, phone video, 650,000 views. Effort doesn’t correlate with success.
Scaling is optional: Deliberately staying a one-man-show can be the right decision. Satisfaction is also a metric.
Accept what you don’t understand: Some things on YouTube work without any recognizable pattern. Question everything and you’ll go crazy.
Happy Bootstrapping is a German podcast where I interview bootstrapped founders, indie hackers, and solopreneurs about their startup journeys.
Over the years, I’ve connected with many successful entrepreneurs who have built e-commerce shops, SaaS platforms, mobile apps, content businesses, or hybrid models.
Furthermore I am a bootstrapper myself and growing my DevOps-as-a-Sercice and Web Operations Company “We Manage”.