Background and career
Simon Edward Minter (born 7 September 1992), better known as Miniminter, is an English influencer and streamer. He is a member and co-founder of the British influencer group the Sidemen, as well as a co-owner of vodka brand XIX Vodka, clothing brand Sidemen Clothing, restaurant chain Sides, and breakfast cereal brand Best Breakfasts. He is also the co-founder of M7 Education, a non-profit organisation. Minter's YouTube career started in 2012, primarily focusing on FIFA gaming videos. Over time, he diversified his content, incorporating vlogs, challenges, and collaborations with other influencers. In 2016, he was ranked 17th on Business Insider's list of "The 19 biggest British YouTube stars". As of January 2025, his main YouTube channel has over 10.4 million subscribers and over 4.1 billion views.
Simon Edward Minter was born on 7 September 1992 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England, to British parents. He is the youngest of three siblings. He attended Berkhamsted School, a private boys' school, where he first encountered Olajide "KSI" Olatunji. Although the two initially disliked each other, they later became close friends. During the early stages of KSI's YouTube channel, Minter contributed as a cinematographer and assisted in creating content before starting his own channel. Minter briefly studied criminology at the University of Hull, but left his studies to pursue a full-time career in YouTube content creation.
Minter created his first YouTube channel, Miniminter, in February 2008, though he did not upload his first video until December 2012. He stated that the "mini" part of his username "miniminter" is a reference to his height when he was young and him being the youngest of three children. Inspired by his friend JJ Olatunji, Minter began creating content while still a university student. Shortly thereafter, he decided to quit university to pursue YouTube full-time. His early content primarily consisted of FIFA gameplay, vlogs, challenges, and football videos featuring his friends.
In September 2013, Minter launched his second YouTube channel, MM7Games. A month later, he along with KSI, Josh Bradley (Zerkaa), Tobi Brown (TBJZL) and Ethan Payne (Behzinga) formed the Rockstar Games Social Club group the Ultimate Sidemen via Grand Theft Auto Online, later simplified to Sidemen. By 2014, the group had expanded to seven members, adding Vikram Barn (Vikkstar123) and Harry Lewis (W2S). The Sidemen are known for their collaborative content, including weekly uploads of challenges, gameplay, and vlogs. Minter's channel gained rapid popularity in 2014, achieving 100,000 subscribers in March and one million subscribers in November. In 2016, Minter and the Sidemen organised the Upload influencer event, a gathering that allowed fans to interact with the Sidemen and other web video creators. The second and final Upload event took place in September 2017. In September 2016, he reached five million subscribers. Later in November 2016, he was ranked 17th on Business Insider's list of "The 19 biggest British YouTube stars". He reached 10 million subscribers in May 2022.
Minter and the Sidemen have founded multiple businesses throughout their online careers. In 2014, the group launched a clothing brand under the Sidemen Clothing banner. In November 2021, they founded the restaurant chain Sides in collaboration with Reef. In October 2022, they launched their own vodka brand named XIX Vodka. In March 2024, they launched the breakfast cereal brand Best Breakfasts in collaboration with Mornflake.
In November 2018, Minter and fellow influencer Randolph created a podcast called the What's Good podcast. The podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
