In 2014, I was fresh out of college and thought I had my life all planned out: Go to medical school, get a six-figure job as a doctor, and make my parents proud.
None of that worked out. I realized I hated blood and needles, and got rejected from more than 15 medical schools. My parents weren’t so happy.
From 2014 to 2019, I took on tutoring side hustles , did some modeling gigs, started a drop shipping business, and even worked as a real estate agent. But nothing was consistent in earning me a steady income stream.
After several business attempts, I finally found something that worked: Posting financial advice on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. In 2021, my content creation business brought in $1.5 million in revenue — and my mom stopped sending me job listings. How I built a $1.5 million-per-year business
I had been posting on YouTube since 2006, but the content was random and inconsistent. So I decided to stick with the topic that excited me the most: money.
Growing up in a painfully frugal family, I was always interested in coming up with ways to be smarter about earning, saving and investing. In 2018, I created a new YouTube channel dedicated to financial advice. I posted almost every day, as well as on Instagram and TikTok .
In 2021, Chang’s business brought in $1.5 million in gross revenue.
Photo: Charlie Chang
My first few videos received around a dozen views each, half of which were from my mom. I was still earning most of my money through odd jobs and side hustles.
But in April 2020, about a month after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic,I noticed a spike in interest around stimulus-related content. That month, I posted 20 YouTube videos about the stimulus and relief efforts. One of my videos went viral — earning me $10,078 in ad revenue and 30,300 subscribers.
In May, I posted 19 videos and made $15,791 in ad revenue. And in June, I landed my first sponsorship deal with Foundr , an online education company; they paid me $250 to create one TikTok post.
I continued to experiment with different types of video content to see what was most effective in growing my audience and attracting interest from brands.
By November, after securing another partnership deal and reaching around 200,000 subscribers, I decided to launch my first online course teaching people how to start their own successful YouTube channels.
In 2021, I added affiliate marketing to my income streams. I made $86,000 in January, then scaled to an average of $150,000 per month in 2021. How to build multiple income streams
Today, I have over 650,000 YouTube followers. So far this year, I’ve made about $197,700 per month via five income streams — several of which create passive income. At one point, I made $245,000 in a month.
What I love about the business I’ve built is that I can choose when and where to work. Some days I’ll work zero hours, and other days I’ll put in 12 hours. On average, I work 35 hours per week.
Here’s how I built each of my income streams: 1. Affiliate marketing: 40% of monthly income
With affiliate marketing, I earn commission for promoting another brand’s product or services. I post affiliate links in the descriptions of my YouTube videos and on my website, then get paid each time someone is directed to a brand’s product page or makes a purchase.
To make passive income through affiliate marketing, you need to include links on targeted content in a niche that people are searching for. This can lead to clicks for months, even long after you’ve posted. For example, I link to captions based on popular search terms, which I find using the Google Trends tool .I get most of my affiliate deals through partnership management platforms like Impact Radius , Partnerstack and Share-A-Sale . Creators with any audience size can use these websites to find and join affiliate link programs. 2. Brand sponsorships: 25% of monthly income With brand sponsorships, companies essentially pay me to mention them in one of my videos or on my website.Brands typically reach out to me via the email address on my YouTube profile, but I also work with agencies like Spacestation to secure more sponsorships.Finding a niche helped me grow a loyal and authentic audience, which has been crucial to my success. I answered Covid-related finance questions that no one else was addressing. Then I took the concepts with the highest audience engagement and ran with them.“What I […]
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