I’ll be 55 in 2028. It means one thing, the retirement age is fast approaching although I’m not in any way retiring. While the present lifestyle I’m enjoying right now is already stabilised and comfortable, it is not actually sustainable. Not yet. The major chunk of all the income I am earning right now requires me to be active. And I need to convert this active income to passive, the soonest possible. Then only I will be at peace with myself.
No, I’m not into those conventional ways of creating passive income. I prefer the Internet. My plan always revolves around creating digital assets, and establishing meaningful value out of them — so strong that people out there will keep on using them month-in-month-out, and subscribe to them again and again.
This is the rough concept I’m using now.
I hate myself for being a late bloomer. While almost all my friends are doing great right now, at this age yet here I am, about to further stabilize my financial life through this small-time strategy of mine hoping it’ll work. In hand, what I have with me right now is a good consulting business, about to re-embark my Medium journey, a marketing newsletter and a passion for writing.
A consulting business
I’ve been running a consulting business for a while now. It specialises in marketing strategy and lead generation. The business is doing okay, and the revenue size is pretty decent — not too big and not too small either. Since I’ve been living moderately, the majority of the income generated from this consulting outfit goes to my savings. I am also keeping some portions of it aside to fund a couple of projects that I’m presently working on.
I consider this a main gig. The way I market this consulting service is through articles. That’s right, I make people reach out. For now, the firm doesn’t have any other personnel except me. And I prefer running this business alone with the growth pace I’m comfortable with. Maybe in a year, I may need to hire one or probably two associates to help me with the operations. This way, I can gradually let go and free my time to do something else more productive. So far so good, the business can acquire new customers almost every month through LinkedIn, email outreach, partnerships and the referral program I created. The plan is to retain the income from this consulting service for as long as possible while I’m growing the passive ones.
Medium
I was playing Medium quite aggressively for a few months. The earnings were quite okay. After two months of becoming a paid member, I managed to make about $15 per month. Two to three months later, I decided to stop writing on Medium altogether. The reason back then was simple. I had a feeling the rate seemed to be less favourable to the Malaysian or rather Asia-based writers. It’s pretty low compared to those writers in the United States and Europe.
Now, I’m considering writing on Medium again and attempting to make it big this time—in terms of writing quality articles consistently, acquiring more followers and email subscribers, generating a decent income again every single month and growing the incoming payout bigger. FYI, the preparation has begun. I’m in the process of refreshing my older articles now, updating them to make them current and relevant. Once things are stabilised, I might get a couple of ghostwriters to help me with the content’s weekly production.
A newsletter journey
I have a fully-gated marketing newsletter. It is called Pelantar. Here, I published insightful 2 to 3-minute read marketing articles two times a week. All the articles here are premium. There are now 22 subscribers altogether, paying just $3 monthly to access the articles. I hope to acquire at least 5,000 subscribers in total before I hit 55.
FYI, I’m a marketing strategist. I love to write too. Most of my insights here are based on my 27 years of experience in marketing, particularly in the areas of transforming a business strategy into a marketing strategy and integrated marketing. I read and observe trends, reports and mistakes made by other companies, notice a pattern in them and then have the knowledge into articles.
You heard it right, I want to grow my subscribers as big as possible. I know, having just Medium to host my articles is not going to cut it. The income will fluctuate based on content quality and consistency.
Yes, this is the latest asset I’m building. I created this with the intention of not spending too much time or being active running it. Since the entire operations are automated, I just spend my time writing. Having two ghostwriters to help me with the articles is already in the plan. That’s it. I’m not sure how big this newsletter is going to become, but I am confident that the 5,000 subscribers I’m targeting will be released soon.
Writing gig
I also co-own another content platform that works pretty similar to Medium. I call it 300th. Here, I will write more about life. In between this kind of article, I also review movies I watched and a little bit of entrepreneurship-related pieces here and there. The context of these articles varies. In most cases, it’s about my own opinion about trending topics, some ideas perhaps and the whys.
My plan for 300th is to cover the Asian market, just like how Medium works great in the United States and European countries. I started to spend less time here, which is exactly what I want. There’s a team of six talented people running the platform remotely. They are scattered all over Malaysia, from Penang to Klang Valley and Kuantan. Once the platform hosts enough writers and generates consistent money month-in-month-out, I want to raise a decent fund from selected investors to grow it bigger and push the reach globally.
Getting old is a privilege
Yes, ageing is a privilege. Don’t let others tell you otherwise. The last thing I want to do is to still work my ass off actively hunting for money at 60 or 90. I don’t want that. Instead, it should be the other way around.
Earn more by doing less.
The income should be as sustainable and passive as possible. The way I see it, the foundation I’m having right now looks pretty promising. I hope to see fruits from each ‘department’ here. But first things first, one small win at a time. Hopefully, two years down the road, I can reap the fruits smiling.
