Shaun McKnight

Shaun McKnight was born on May 5, 1974 in Idaho. He has been married to Mindy McKnight for over a decade and they have four biological children: Brooklyn, Bailey, Kamri, and Rylan and two adopted children: Daxton and Paisley. He studied Psychology for his undergrad and went on to purse an MBA later. The couple confessed that because of the growth of the YouTube channel, they could adopt two additional children to the family. They have written their adoption story on their blog and chronicled how it impacted their lives. He has confessed that his perspective on parenting changed once he quit his job and stayed at home.

Shaun McKnight had a regular 9-to-5 job as a Business Development Director for Nature’s Sunshine Products in Utah when he realized the popularity of YouTube. His wife, Mindy McKnight, was running the ‘Cute Girls Hairstyles’ channel and it was progressively getting more popular. They had first started with placing photos in an album and uploading them but the responses were tremendous with increasing comments and they decided to start live tutorials. Shaun saw this as a business opportunity and couldn’t juggle between his regular job and overseeing the channel. In September 2013, he decided to quit his comfortable position to focus on expanding the channel’s popularity. The content started focusing on girls hairstyles, hairdos, lifestyle, beauty, parenting, teen advice, among others.

Some of the most popular videos of this channel include ‘Live Mermaids Swimming in Our Pool’, ‘Feather Waterfall & Ladder Braid Combo’, ‘The Waterfall Braid’, and ‘Ponytail Bow’. The enormous success could be ascribed to the fact that the content was free and the hairdos were in the form of step-by-step video tutorials. Shaun’s branding initiative and strategies successfully made the channel financially viable and constantly popular. He has an acumen for Adsense, promotions, products, and brands. With Shaun’s guidance and direction, his twin daughters, Brooklyn and Bailey, started their own YouTube vlog which focuses on beauty and fashion. Subsequently, the couple launched two other channels: ‘Millennial Moms’, which focuses on lifestyle and parenting and ‘Squared2’, another entertainment channel that is exlusively dedicated to twins and everything related to them.

Shaun McKnight currently manages four other channels related to his family along with this primary channel. The main channel ‘Cute Girls Hairstyles’ went on to become YouTube's Top 250 ‘Most Subscribed All-Time’ channel and Top 10 Beauty channel. The channel was also voted number one up-and-coming channel on YouTube in a Google competition.

Shaun and his family have also been widely covered by different media, including Disney Jr, Nickelodeon, People, Cosmopolitan, and other national and international news publications. He had the opportunity to direct digital content for Disney IMG's style channel as well. He is among the top-ranked social media influencers in the United States today.

On May 10, 2018, he gave a speech on ‘Building a Business Beyond Your Channel’ at the ClamourCon Creator Summit and summarized how he has efficiently managed to expand his family’s channel into a steady income. ‘Cute Girls Hairstyles’ currently runs as a small lifestyle media empire with millions of followers. Apart from this, he is currently a partner in Beddys.com, a premium zippered-bedding company and CVXLive, a video convention. The future goal for the couple is to write a book on parenting and the experience of raising six children. They also want to focus on licensing deals for Cute Girls Hairstyles-branded merchandise and products so that their fans can be more connected to them.