I’m going to try and write this to be the least cringe as possible, even though some of it will be.
I’ve also left out some details. Details that I will probably never share online. Because some things are best kept private.
Common questions I get:
- How do you make money?
- Where are you from?
- Did you go to university?
- How did you learn design?
Early life
I grew up not well off at all. I don’t come from a wealthy background. My parents and grandparents are immigrants. They tried their best with what they had, which wasn’t much.
Like any nerdy kid, I was interested in computers, gadgets and games. My parents however, like most parents at the time, didn’t approve. They thought it was all a waste of time. I used to spend a lot of time gaming, it was a great escape.
I had the typical spiel of you go to school, you go to university to be a doctor or engineer, and then you get a job. I truly believed this is how life was up until around 17-18 years old.
I can’t remember at what age I specifically first used a computer. This must have been around the late 90s/early 2000s. But I do remember going to my grandparents house and using the computer they had, because my parents couldn’t afford one.
My mind was blown.
My child brain couldn’t fully comprehend what I was using, but I knew it was big. Ever since then I was obsessed with computers. It was also the first time I ever used the internet. And that was at the time of dial-up.
It wasn’t until 8 years later, 2008, where I would finally have a computer and broadband at home. And the only reason we had it was because the school curriculum pretty much required it due to homework and research needed for classes. If it weren’t for that, I don’t think my parents would have bothered.
Teenagehood
Around the same time, I enrolled in a class at my school that taught me Photoshop and other related programmes. I remember one of the first things I made was a movie poster. This was my first understanding of “oh shit, I can make stuff out of nothing” on a computer. The class itself was quite basic and mainly introductory, but it was a good taster for me.
Naturally, I did what every teenager does, I started making themes for Bebo and forum signatures. I had no taste, no skills, and was half-assing it all. But this was the best way for me to learn.
For a few years here I still didn’t fully understand the value of learning about computers, software, art…etc. I was still on the path of becoming either a doctor or engineer. And I don’t know who I was kidding, because I wasn’t smart enough to do either. When I told a teacher I wanted to become either of these things, he let me down in the nicest way possible. I knew from his expression that neither was possible, because academically I just wasn’t very good.
But I was a little delusion. And that actually plays a bigger role later on.
In my late teens I now fully understood how little money my family had. I now needed to take control and figure out how to get out of the worry about not being able to afford bills. No one was coming to save me and no one is going to do anything for me.
The device that leads to everything
I bought my first smartphone at 18, with pretty much all of the savings I had from birthdays and doing odd jobs. This was the game changer for me as it pretty much leads to where I am today.
It was a HTC Desire. First thing I started doing is downloading tons of apps and customising the heck out of it. I used to find homescreen setups, icon packs and other similar stuff on forms like XDA developers and DeviantArt.
This led to my first foray in to sharing work online. The only place I had shared stuff online was to my own friends on Bebo and Facebook. But sharing your stuff with completely strangers was different.
I was delusional enough to think that strangers would like my customisations. And they were.
I started getting comments and messages requesting what wallpaper I was using, where I got the icons from, and what apps I was using.
The icons specifically were super basic text icons that I made in Photoshop, but I saw an opportunity to sell them. This was my first taste of “internet money”. I was only selling them for a couple of dollars. I wasn’t making much money at all, but it was enough to give me the itch.
At the same time I realised there was a whole world out there called UI design. I came across a very special website called Dribbble.com. I saw many designers sharing their design work on there and was amazed at it all. I was even more amazed at how much money they were making. I came to the quick realisation that I could be a designer and easily earn as much as a doctor or engineer.
I ended up spending the next few years learning as much as I could about UI design, website design and basic code. Because I wasn’t earning much at all, I primarily learned everything for free. My primary way of learning was by doing. I was creating stuff I was interested in, and following any random tutorial that may come up. Self-learning was my superpower.
Template gold
This was the era of Tumblr. A blog like social media network. I had a Tumblr account and multiple Tumblr blogs. And just like my Android phone, I wanted to customise my Tumblr blog. This is where I fell in to learning HTML/CSS and web design.
For a good few years I was messing around with Tumblr. Running a few blogs and making my own themes. Tumblr had it’s own Tumblr theme marketplace called the Theme Garden. Again, my young brain didn’t even know there was money in this sort of stuff. Who is paying $49 for a Tumblr theme when you could make one yourself quite easily. I was clueless.
I was speaking to a random dude who was making Tumblr themes for his design agency. And he mentioned in a conversation that they were making $5k a month from Tumblr themes. My mind starting running. I was like wtf. That’s an absolute shit load money that would change my life. Here I was giving away Tumblr themes for free.
So instantly I applied to sell themes on the Tumblr Theme Garden. I was delusional enough to think my limited years of design and development skills were good enough. I was declined. Twice. My designs. My templates. All of it. Not good enough. So I spent the next year or so polishing my design and markup skills. I applied again.
I received an email the next day confirming my acceptance in to the theme garden. The moment I read that email, I knew from then on my life would never be the same. How much my life would change though I did not anticipate.
I went from earning pretty much nothing, to instantly earning $5k a month, $10k, $20k, to then some months being $30k. I was earning in a month what my parents earned in a whole year. I think I cried a few times because I had years of trying so many different ways to make money, and none of it was enough. This transformed my life and completely rewired my brain. I actually emailed the guy who accepted me over 10 years later, telling him how much he changed my life without him even realising it.
I knew this Tumblr money was not going to last, so I saved pretty much all of it. I could have easily burned it all by living it up. But I knew it was a finite source of money so I had to be sensible. A couple of years later I bought my own house, which was one of the best financial decisions I made at the time.
Building an audience
As Tumblr was dying, Instagram was growing. I had an Instagram profile where I would regularly share random pictures of my setup and tech products I was interested in. I honed in on this and regularly shared product photography and reviews.
After a lot of comments and requests I ended up uploading my first YouTube video in late 2015. It was a setup and office tour. And it’s recorded very simply. You don’t even see my face in it.
Again this is where the delusional part of me comes in. You could also argue just sheer confidence in myself. I continued uploading videos. I worked on making every video better than the last.
From 2015 to 2021 I would upload videos about anything I was interested in, but primarily tech related stuff. However this was all for fun. I had no proper schedule and I wasn’t really all that intentional with it. I didn’t even care if it made money or not.
All of my videos before 2021 I think are cringe. I hate looking back at them. That’s a totally different me. But also you have to be cringe to improve.
I had a realisation in 2019/2020 that this is hugely scalable. I was still doing client work at the time, taking on design projects. But I could only sell so much of my time. However with videos, I wasn’t necessarily putting more time and money in to them, yet they would make more money year-on-year.
2021 was when I started taking YouTube a lot more seriously as the income from it overtook income from client work. Making videos was immensely fun and still is.
I took it so seriously that I started renting a warehouse and put an office/studio in it so that I could make videos more regularly and have a dedicated space for it all.
I’d say this was a huge turning point in building an audience because it made me think about YouTube more like a business. I knew that out of everything I was doing, YouTube had the biggest potential and could be my top of funnel for everything I do going forward.
I also created another YouTube channel, sharing business, finance and self-improvement related topics. Again, I was just doing this for fun. But I knew from my main channel that this could also make a lot of money. So as long as I was making videos about stuff I was personally interested in, the audience would come naturally.
YouTube is a huge money generator for me. A lot of people think you need millions of subscribers to make money from YouTube. It’s just not true. What matters more is the niche and what topics you cover. There is tons of sponsorship money in tech and gear, due to the amount of money these companies put towards marketing. And the type of viewer watching these videos are also usually a higher-then-average earner to be able to even afford the products.
If you’re interested in how I make videos, I actually put together everything in one place – videocreatorcourse.com – this isn’t a big money generator for me but I wanted to put all of my learnings about making video in one place.
Digital gold mine
Ever since the Tumblr themes, I’ve always found a way to sell digital products online.
In 2017 I started selling Lightroom presets. Which were surprisingly popular. They were making a few hundred dollars a month.
Since then I’ve continued to make and release digital products. To me they are the closest thing to passive income. Nothing is truly passive, but these are close. Because most of the products I make require some initial time input to make and then once they’re up for sale they can continue to make money for years with very little customer support.
Outside of YouTube sponsorships, digital products have been one of my biggest money generators. I’ve made millions from them. Which sounds absurd as I type this out.
If you’re interested in everything I know about making digital products you can check out onlinecreatorcourse.com
I see digital product income continue to grow for me. As my audience grows and as I build a larger product portfolio.
I feel as though we’re living in an absolute digital gold mine that is growing exponentially every year.
The cancer
In July 2020 I found out I had cancer. Testicular cancer to be specific. I was 27 years old. I’ve written a more detailed blog post about it here.
I found out only after I ended up in hospital with breathing problems. Doctors found I had two pulmonary embolisms, one in each lung. Most people die from one. I somehow was still alive.
Doctors couldn’t work out why though until they did a scan and found I had 12 marble sized lumps in my lungs. Which was a shock to them as I looked completely fine. That’s when they found out that I had cancer somewhere in my body. My doctor estimates I had the cancer growing in me for a year before it was found.
I went through three cycles of absolutely brutal chemotherapy. It was over 12 weeks. Some days I was in the hospital for 8 hours.
I lost all of my hair. I couldn’t do basic things like open a water bottle because the treatment was wreaking havoc on me. The side effects were horrendous.
People always ask me did I have any life altering thoughts or did anything “change”. Only one thing changed. I understood the value of time and how going forward I want to be in control of it as much as possible.
I skipped death three times.
Now
My current primary sources of income are YouTube, digital products from my store, and investments.
I’ve been pretty savvy with investments, to the point where my portfolio sometimes now outpaces my yearly income. I’m actively investing in startups too so if you have a business that needs money, advisory roles, or are open to other forms of investment, get in touch.
Going forward my plan is to continually try building new online businesses off the back of my YouTube channels. I love making. I love trying new things.