Blogs and YouTube have become more and more popular in recent years with the help of social media such as Facebook, Instagram etc. It becomes easier for these online sources to become popular when people start to share it. Even a simple post on Facebook can go viral and attract the attention of the government and authorities which we have seen a lot in the recent NUS voyeur case.
In recent times where I'm seeing more and more people able to create websites or YouTube channels and make it their full time work. This means that they are able to earn a decent income from their online channels that they don't have to work in the corporate world at all. If you think this only happens overseas but not in Singapore, then you're wrong. Let me show you some examples of websites and Youtube Channels in Singapore whose founders have made it possible to make money full time online and also international channels as well.
Singapore News Website Mothership
The first one is well known to many of us in Singapore. Mothership is an online news website which in essence just writes on news in Singapore and around the world. They have 300K followers on their Facebook page. On their about us page, they mention they attract over 1 Million visits to their site each month with over 60 per cent of their audience being between the ages of 25 and 44. They even have a license with IMDA where now online news channel is regulated by the government.
On advertising front, it is stated on their website that they have worked with many government ministries and stat board including MOT, MOE, MINDEF, EDB, MCCY, MOF, MND, NYC, HDB, AIC, NLB, MAS, LTA and CPF board. For companies, they have worked with big players such as DBS, UOB, Maybank, AXA, MacDonald, BreadTalk, KFC, Singapore Airlines, Singtel, Grab etc. This is quite an impressive portfolio of clients with deep pockets to pay for advertising. From my experience, with their kind of website traffic, advertisers are expected to pay a few thousand just for one article which mentions their brand.
The website started with 3 guys and I see that their team has expanded to more than 10 staff. This is really a company running in full force to deliver the best news you can get. So, they made it as the first website that could make money full time online.
Singapore Finance Website Seedly
The next website is a Singapore personal finance website called Seedly. Many of you who are reading my blog should already know or heard of Seedly. They have been gaining popularity lately due to the community fan base which they have built in just a few years. On their Facebook page, they have close to 16K followers and is still growing strongly. Recently, they also had a mega personal finance ticketed event at Suntec which attracted thousands of people to attend.
Seedly started in 2016. I met their founder Kenneth just before Seedly was born and my impression is he's a passionate guy who has the drive to make things happen in the personal finance world. He was at that time looking to develop an app for people in Singapore to track their finances. He made it happen and expanded to create the Seedly app, moving on to creating their website and building the Facebook community which is really strong now.
A quick check on similarweb shows that the website has more than 700K visits in March 2019 alone. If I'm not wrong, they are now a team of 9 running the company and recently in May 2018, they were acquired by Shopback. This is a homegrown success story for a small start up which shows that if we want to make things happen, it can be done. So, they made it as the second website that could make money full time online.
The next one is not a website but a YouTube channel. YouTube is gaining popularity among young people especially those in their teens. I've observed that the younger generation have also moved on from Facebook to Instagram now with many of them posting photos and Instagram stories on a daily basis.
The YouTube channel JianHao Tan is created by a young guy whose name is as its channel says it is. From the looks, he seems quite young in his 20s and have already garnered more than 3 Million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He also have 476K followers on his personal Instagram page and 85K followers on Facebook. He also talks about people who recognize him when he travels overseas which is quite impressive for a Singapore start up. He is definitely doing this full time as he has registered a company called Titan Digital Media and also shows his office space and daily life routine on his YouTube channel. Of course, he's not doing this alone and has a team of about 5 to 6 staff if I'm not wrong.
Most of his videos posted have more than a million views with those more popular ones having views as high as 26M views for 1 video alone. Curious to know what kind of video can attract so many views? Here is the video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KofiHFsBQk
He also has an annual fan meet up and the one I saw which was held at Dhoby Ghaut area attracted people to queue up all the way from Plaze Singapura to Istana area. Most of them are quite young who are teens in secondary school. So, they made it as the YouTube channel that could make money full time online.
International Travel Vlogger Mark Weins
For those who like to travel, ever thought that you could make money while travelling full time? This guy has done it. He's just one of the popular travel vloggers who has managed to do it. Mark Weins started his travel website Migrationology back in 2009.
His success story is reproduced below which is found on his website:
"It was during that time, back in early 2009 when I decided to start a blog. With the help of about 10 cups of coffee per day, Migrationology.com was born.
I still wasn't ready to get a job and stay put, so I caught a one way ticket to Bangkok, with no plans other than to eat as much as I could.
After traveling around Southeast Asia for about 6 months, I managed to spend nearly all my money.
I was in the Philippines at that time, and I caught a flight from Manila to Bangkok. At this point, I decided to get a job teaching English, and it didn't take long before I signed a contract to teach English for a year.
However, English teaching was not for me (it was a great experience, but teaching English is just not my passion).
But during that year, I set a personal goal that I would never teach again, and that I would find a way to make a living on the internet, so I could travel (and eat) and earn money at the same time.
It wasn't easy.
Every spare moment I would blog and sit glued in front of my laptop until my eyes went crazy.
At the beginning, when I made the decision to earn a living online, I'll admit that I had to live on the cheap (really cheap).
One of the biggest turning points for me was when I published my first eBook, the Eating Thai Food Guide. I finally had my very first product to sell on my website.
It took about 3 years of online work and experimenting before I really started making enough to live fully and support anyone other than myself."
It took him 3 years of online work and experimenting before he could make enough fully online. Now, his YouTube channel Mark Weins has more than 4 Million subscribers. This is quite impressive. I love his travel videos for his love for food and his expression when he eats something good is priceless.
Does money fall from the sky if we don't work in the corporate world?
So, after seeing people who manage to make money full time online, do you think it is easy to do it? From my experience, it is not easy and it requires perseverance and time and effort to make it happen. Yes my blog can make some money online but it is definitely not sufficient to make enough to live fully and support my family or loved ones. It is about creating great contents consistently and working in a team is important to bring in new contents if you really want to make money full time online.
Just like a company has a team to work together to make things happen, making money online is also like running a company. Instead of the brick and mortal business we see in the past where real products are needed, online contents such as articles and videos can also generate profits now. The hard work required to create these online content products is still the same or even more to make it successful.
The difference is nowadays, everyone has the opportunity to do this online business instead of the brick and mortal which was limited to certain people only. That's why now we can see more young people trying to make the cut to be the next successful blogger, influencer or YouTuber. It may just be you if you try hard enough and are passionate for what you really want to do.
