YouTube star Jennelle Eliana uses her iPhone to film and edit her videos, which got 23 million views in a month

• YouTube phenomenon Jennelle Eliana Long, who gained 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube within a month of posting her first video, uses only her iPhone X to film and edit them, she told Business Insider.
• She uses the $29.99 LumaFusion app to edit her videos, a tripod, and the occasional microphone.
• Breakthrough creators like Long are a perfect example of why you don't need fancy equipment to be successful on YouTube.
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You don't have to hire a camera crew or buy fancy equipment to build a successful career on YouTube.

Take YouTube sensation Jennelle Eliana Long, who lives in a self-renovated van and uses her iPhone X to film and edit her wildly popular videos.

Long, who gained 1.6 million subscribers YouTube within a month (after only posting 3 videos), used just her phone, a tripod, and the occasional microphone to produce them.

These videos have gained massive success on the platform after YouTube's algorithm picked up her first two videos and recommended them to its users. Her second video titled, "HOW I SHOWER LIVING IN A VAN," amassed 12 million views in two weeks.

"There have been a lot of conspiracies that I have a whole team behind me, but I literally just film and edit on my phone," she told Business Insider.

The 20-year-old "van-lifer" strives to live simply in her self-converted 1995 GMC Vandura Explorer Limited and started her channel as a way to document and share her nomadic adventures.

Long didn't let her goal of starting a YouTube channel get in the way of her lifestyle. She purchased the $29.99 video editing and effects app, LumaFusion, to edit her videos and uses the camera of her iPhone to film them.

Popular YouTube stars like Casey Neistat and David Dobrik are known online for always bringing an expensive DSLR camera with them to film their vlog-style content.

These cameras can cost anywhere between mid-hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on what specifications you are looking for. That doesn't even count add-on equipment to improve a video's overall quality, like a microphone, lighting kit, and tripod.

Editing software, like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro, will cost you another couple hundred dollars - plus the computer to use it on.

But breakthrough creators like Long are an example of how anyone can start a YouTube channel without spending a ton up front.

For more about the YouTube creator Jennelle Eliana and her rapid success, check out the full interview on Business Insider Prime:

"We talked to YouTube sensation Jennelle Eliana about gaining 1.5 million subscribers within a month of posting her first video about living in a van"