From humble beginnings to a promising career path

Yuto Morita’s life was very different just a few years ago, and he wasn’t feeling good about his future.

He struggled with traditional education and didn’t go to college. “I’m not the type of person who can study,” Yuto explains. After graduating high school, he worked blue-collar jobs in Tokyo on a building site and as a glass garbage collector. “Back then I had my dreams but wandered off course for various reasons. I was in a situation where I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future, but I didn’t want things to continue as they were,” he says.

Yuto learned about an introductory meeting for an iPhone app development course through a vocational school and decided it could be a step in the right direction. He was impressed by how many people his age gave inspiring presentations on stage, and he networked with representatives from companies like Google, CyberAgent, and Rakuten. He thought to himself, “I don’t really understand any of this, but it’s cool!”

Dreams become reality
Yuto’s curiosity turned to excitement after the meeting, and he applied to the course. Although he knew nothing about programming, he accepted the challenge. And it proved to be an even more difficult challenge than he anticipated. “If you do blue-collar work, taking breaks from those jobs is impossible. The course just wasn’t compatible with my type of work,” Yuto explains. “It felt like I had so many setbacks. I hadn’t used a computer before, let alone done any programming.”

But quitting wasn’t an option for Yuto, and he eventually graduated. Upon graduation, he worked hard to change occupations and become an IT engineer at a video production company. Along the way, he read publications to help him gain a fundamental knowledge of programming and started publishing programming tutorials on YouTube. “At first I did it as a way to help myself remember,” he says. His viewers increased faster than he expected, which could have overwhelmed the beginner app developer, but he turned it into another learning opportunity. “All the thinking that went into my responses was instrumental to my own growth, and I realized that making videos can be fun. I taught myself about them and wanted to learn more,” he says.

Now, Udemy gives Yuto another channel for delivering his content. “It holds big potential for further income outside of YouTube. A lot of people have come to know me via Udemy. Even in my main job it has created new opportunities where people have asked me to do work with them just because they saw my Udemy courses,” he says. Yuto tells his friends and family “anyone can teach anything.”

More than a number
Programming has become more than just an occupation for Yuto; it’s a passion he’s sharing with the world. Outside of his online courses, he give talks on video production to inspire enthusiasm and generate interest in IT skills among youth. Additionally, he helps guide junior high school students toward making their own Facebook-like apps and encouraging them to think, “There are better ideas than Facebook. I’ll be the next Mark Zuckerberg someday.”

Since he started selling his content, Yuto’s lifestyle and knowledge have been transformed. “Income growth makes me happy, but more than anything, the content I’ve created is being seen by the world, and I feel that I’m making a small contribution to society through the positive feedback I get about my courses,” he says.

“Nowadays there are many people who think they don’t have valuable skills, but in this world there is someone who needs the knowledge you have,” Yuto explains, “I think that even if the numbers aren’t large, what you know could be important to one person, and that could contribute to your personal growth and success.”