How I Made My First Million Online
In the Beginning was the Word
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I made my first million Naira in 2017,
And it was from teaching people how to brand themselves online.
But did you know that when I first started that blog?
I was confused on what to write about.
So I started experimenting.
I wrote political reviews, shared spoken word poetry, and even opinion pieces about the platform I was blogging on.
After two weeks of experimentation, I settled on writing short stories.
Mind you, I was not entirely a novice then to online content creation.
I had spent the previous five years (2012 -2016) learning all I could about building a blog.
What limited me then was a lack of a computer/laptop that I could blog with.
These days, you can blog here on Substack using a Smartphone.
It was in late 2016 that I finally got a laptop that I could practice with.
But despite all my knowledge, I still didn’t know what topic to blog about.
Writing short stories wasn’t my ideal content direction for the platform that I was on.
But I needed something that made me show up daily.
After writing short stories for two weeks and interacting with the content of others on the blogging platform.
I discovered that many people didn’t know how to write and brand themselves online.
So I started writing about writing and branding and my blog took off.
I started blogging in January 2017 and by April I had earned over $3000.
I also waited till I crossed over a million naira in earnings before I made my first withdrawal.
I decided to start with this story to let you understand that the worst thing you can do about your online content creation journey is to stand still.
Do you love movies?
Watch them and write a review about them.
Do you like Football?
Share the history of your favorite club.
There are a lot of stories to share.
You mustn’t start with something that looks extremely intellectual.
Entertainment is still the number one content category on the Internet.
For order, I will share my story in three categories.
Platform
Content + Community
Product/Service
early snapshot of my steemit blog
Choosing a Platform
My blogging career actually started in October 2016.
I started a free WordPress blog
But I still had a lot of limitations,
Building a proper blog required some investments
Hosting and other blog-related expenses were not cheap then.
I also didn’t have a community anywhere, so there was nowhere to share the content that I was creating.
So when I discovered Steemit in 2017, I was very happy.
Like Medium, there was already a community of people using the platform that could easily access your content.
Steemit was a blogging platform where you earn cryptocurrency if people upvote(like) your content.
I discovered Steemit because I heard about Bitcoin and started researching cryptocurrencies.
The engagement was high on Steemit because everyone came for the money.
One thing that helped me was a genuine desire to create content that helped people.
It is that passion that separated me from thousands of people.
A few weeks after I started blogging, I was earning $60 - $100 per week.
Many people were not even earning up to $5 a week.
I decided to start a writing contest for my community members and share $20 from my weekly earnings with the winners.
It was my little way of encouraging the serious ones.
Someone read about my contest and connected me to one of the big influencers on the platform who was looking for people to run such contests.
They created a profile for the contest and gave me the account to manage.
I moved from sharing my earnings with contest winners to being paid to run the contest.
I started earning between $300 - $500 per week from running the contest.
They also increased the reward for winners so my community members were benefitting too.
If I didn’t have that desire to help people, I would have never gotten that opportunity.
If you can grab this mentality of helping people, over 80% of your problems with earning online are solved.
It works for all platforms.
After the crypto crash of 2017/2018 and internal fighting between Steemit Stakeholders, the platform ran into issues and things fell apart.
I moved to WhatsApp and started building from scratch.
I replicated everything that I did on Steemit on WhatsApp and found way more success there.
I was one of the first set of people who monetized WhatsApp.
You need to understand that anywhere that has the eyes and ears of people is a great place to sell something.
a snapshot of some of my stories
Content And Community
The platform that you choose is what determines your content format.
Steemit was like Medium, so I created long-form content.
WhatsApp is limited when it comes to what you can post on your Status so short-form text, video, and most recently audio works there.
On Steemit, I moved from writing opinion pieces, sharing news, writing short stories, and finally settled on writing about personal branding.
I still write about personal branding to date.
But I would have never discovered it if I hadn’t gone out and engaged with the content of others.
One of the things that would make you stand out as an online creator is giving to other people what you seek.
Everyone wants to create content that gets thousands of likes and views.
But the fastest way to get there is by creating quality content and also going out to engage with the content of others.
Give and you shall receive.
Creating content is not the end.
You need to distribute the content that you created.
Part of distribution is doing things that would bring people to your page.
A simple tip to follow.
Follow the top 20-30 pages/profiles of people creating quality content related to your industry.
Always engage with their posts.
80% of the comments on each post should be your response to other people who commented on the post.
If you sell clothes and a fashion influencer makes a post, there is a high probability that the people responding to the post are those who can buy your clothes.
They are more likely to check your profile and even follow you if you engage with them.
This is what I did on Steemit.
I worked hard to create quality content and devoted the rest of my day to reading and responding to the posts of others.
You need to do this in a genuine way.
Great Post, Thank You, and Emojis, are all poor responses.
Respond in a way that lets the person know that you read or watched their content.
Support something they said with your view or a story.
Ask questions on things you need more clarity on.
Tell them how what they posted helped you.
If you do this for them and the people who also respond to their posts
More people will come to check out your content.
You need to do this daily and not only on the days that you create content.
This is my number one secret for building a brand on any platform.
The only place this was limited was WhatsApp due to the fact it is a closed platform.
But I still tweaked the rules for WhatsApp and made things work.
Once you consistently create helpful content and engage with people.
Before you know it, a community will form around you.
A community is a group of people who believe in what you believe in - Ajulu
Not everyone can be your community member.
And there are no restrictions to beliefs too.
My content on Steemit helped me make friends all over the world.
People living in New York, Belarus, Sydney, and Capetown.
One of my favorite connections was Henry Gant.
Despite being in his Mid-Fifties, he loved to write online.
He was very adventurous( a shark bit off part of his left leg), and always had stories to share.
In any contest he participated in, he always made the top three.
Another thing that helped me earn big was interviewing the big guys on the platform.
On Steemit, not everyone’s vote was equal.
There are people whose vote gave you 1 cent and there are ones whose vote gave you $10.
So whenever I interview those big guys, they also share the interview with their friends.
I also started doing part one and part two for each interview once I noticed the trend.
More parts, more money.
One of such Interviews noted my over $450 for both parts.
You can do the same to grow on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, etc
Interview the big guys and you will grow faster.
Products and Services
The previous model of building a product goes like this:
Spend weeks, months, or even years building a product.
Launch and Start seeking customers
The new model goes like this:
Spend weeks, months, and years building a community
Listen to their struggles and document them.
Create a product that solves that problem.
Get your first set of customers easily from your community.
On Steemit, the community brought income automatically as their votes on my content brought money.
But when I started building on WhatsApp.
A new approach was needed.
The more I talked about personal branding, the more people shared their challenges.
I then started launching courses to teach them how to solve those problems.
I was even hired by company owners in my community to help their businesses solve branding-related problems.
The first company that I ever worked with was Steemhunt.
This was during my Steemit days.
They were Headquartered in South Korea.
To date, I have never worked in a physical office.
All my jobs have been fully Remote.
And it was my content that went ahead of me to clear any obstacle.
Your biggest problem with earning online is that not enough people know that you care about solving their problems.
Do this and you will win.
Next Steps
Share your industry and your goals for your online brand in the comments below, I will tell you:
The categories of people to engage with online.
The platform that would work best for you
What type of content that I believe that you should create
See you in the comment section
Giveaway
Three people will win my WhatsApp Monetization Guide.
Hundreds of people have used the lessons there to make Millions of Naira using WhatsApp.
I will pick winners from those who make the most insightful comments on this post.
Also, don’t forget to share this post with a friend that needs it.
You can just repost it on your status.
Sharing is Caring.
I had never seen someone explain how he made his first million (for free) like you did.
Most people will tell you to pay for consultations.
The statement that stood out to me was
"you spent 5 years learning all you could about building a blood despite not having a computer/laptop".
This aligns with what you wrote concerning products and services.
(There's a process of active preparation)
- Spend weeks, months, and years building a community.
- Listen to their struggles and document them.
- Create a product that solves that problem.
- Get your first set of customers easily from your community.
I guess I'm still at step 1.
I want to build a community on WhatsApp.
I have the audience (22 to be precise)
A graphics designer friend helped out with the community dp.
The issue I have now is the how-to move.
By the way, I love how you space your sentences.
I'm definitely inculcating that in writing my school essays.
Thank you Ajulu.
Wow Wow Wow and Wow. This is very Insightful sir Ajulu. Thank you for sharing sir.......here is my take home sir
For anyone reading my comment, there are very important questions that summarize this amazing newsletter and that if you can answer you definitely won't have a problem hitting your first N1,000,000.
1. What do you love doing? Sir Ajulu definitely REALIZED he loved writing but had only one issue - what should he write about? But guess what, along the way he found it. The fact that he prepared for 5 years broke my water. So, find what you love doing, find how to create content about it, prepare yourself for the opportunity or create the opportunity.
2. How far are you willing to go? Sir Ajulu made a statement that caught my attention, and he said - "But I needed something that made me show up daily" This got me, meaning that, his mind was made up, either he went hard or went home but he chose to go hard so much his subconscious had clicked to that mentality and guess what? it was in that consistently fighting the urge to go home that after 2 weeks he DISCOVERED what people wanted. He stayed and then discovered, if you STAY long enough you too will DISCOVER
3. What if you don't see results, let's say, in 1 year, would you give up? The amazing thing about this is it wouldn't have take you up to a year to discover a pain point you can solve and accurately position yourself to solve it. One of the major issues anyone could have here is, "are you giving out the right type of content for that audience" or "are you on the right platform for sharing that kind of content"?
If you have tried and tried, just remember sir Ajulu said "The worst thing you can do about your online content creation journey is to STAND STILL"
Finally, the last and most important question to ask yourself
4. Are you really passionate about helping others succeed with what you know, your skill, your expertise etc?
This was exactly what changed the story for Sir Ajulu and got him jobs for foreign companies, also, he got paid for doing what he loved. He was already making money but in his passion to see others succeed building their brands with writing he came up with an idea that involved him giving out part of his earnings, this is not those discounts marketers do today, he actually gave and this catapulted him.
No one would care about you or take you serious, until they know how much you care about them.
So, in summary, Sir Ajulu REALIZED he loved Writing, got to KNOW more about writing, got interested in HELPING others and in the process DISCOVERED their problems and then finally SOLVED their problems in an amazing way, and that way he MADE HIS FIRST MILLION ONLINE.
Amazing story sir.
I hope with these few points of mine, you are re-energized to go out there and make your first million online, don't forget about No 4