Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where—in partnership with global creator company Jellysmack—we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth.

There might not be a direct pipeline for going from a coffee enthusiast and mechanical engineer to a coffee enthusiast and true crime host, but for Adrian Stewart, it was still a natural transition.

Pre-2020, Stewart was all-in on engineering projects, but like many of us, his life was thrown off course by Covid. And, like many of our past Creators on the Rise featurees, his YouTube story started during those earliest lockdowns.

Well, sort of.

Stewart has his own small mystery: Out there somewhere is a gaming channel he made as a teen, and nobody’s found it yet. It wasn’t a pro attempt at becoming a YouTuber, but it did plant the seed for what would eventually become Coffeehouse Crime.