Thank you ! My YouTube channel is fully monetised !

 

Slightly over four months ago, I decided to take YouTube seriously. The reasons are many - I bought a Blue Yeti mic and an Elgato camera, and I was not prepared to treat them as sunk costs. Another reason is that Temasek Polytechnic took a one-semester break and had no modules available for me to teach for the next six months. 

And then came Trump's liberation day when markets crashed.

So this is my channel, started as a defensive manoeuvre to create a new source of income - better do one earlier before I became really desperate and actually had to draw on my capital. 

(I have a Victorian-esque fear of drawing on capital, having read that Victorian landowners would rather engage in prostitution than draw down on their wealth.)

My situation is way better today, but the effort to build the channel continued intensely, and we rode the market recovery of the STI to its peak.

So I gained 1,000 new subscribers and clocked 4,000 hours of views in about 4 months, so I started on 6th April 2025, and we fully monetised today on 18th August 2025. To give a proper perspective, only 8% of channels get fully monetised.

My effort to maintain my channel is minimal. I generate 3 videos and post them every week using a free subscription to Capcuts. The effort is less than 6 hours a week in total - it must be less than someone's computer gaming hobby. 

Also, my philosophy is not to put any money into a project until I can get some cash out. This has proven to be challenging as my videos do not have decent sound processing features - I'm counting on substance to attract my viewers, so I'm happy the fans came through for me.

When choosing the subject matter, I chose the topic based on what material I liked to present. This means accepting poor viewership for my Shallow Dive series, which made me a better retail investor. It's also very illuminating to map the viewers to the featured stock. One of the best value plays in my book is China Sunsine, but viewership was dismal; many viewers tuned into the discussion on MINT. So there's definitely some bias towards REITs with a higher market capitalisation!

Now onto my best content:

My top video is the one on how I lived on dividends for a decade. Dr Wealth suggested this title for my talk on SGX, and so it's no surprise the video alone clocked my 440 hours. The truth of the matter is that I'm very reluctant to harp about my dividends because they will gape at it without understanding the frugality, patience and strategic position that enables this lifestyle in the first place. But sometimes I end up doing it because I also want my business partner to succeed.

In the number two position is a provocative video on CPF that riffs on the 1M65's points on CPF. CPF can be a very polarising topic if done correctly, but it's essential to be fair and balanced on CPF reporting. I'm threading the zone between Mr. Loo's zealous support and Roy Ngerng's overly negative stance when it comes to CPF. The only thing I need to make sure of is to be factual and data-driven in my approach.

Finally, my mini-course on FIRE is the most comprehensive and straightforward explanation of the FIRE movement for anyone interested in joining. I'm disappointed it's not number one on my list because I wanted to create a free course for my viewership. It's also a harsh training in numbers. Shorter videos create longer views proportionately which really reflects on how short everyone's attention span has become. 

Finally, I want to talk about building new income structures like YouTube or dividends. 

As everything is data-oriented with instant feedback, it might not be totally productive to keep watching videos from so-called experts or relying on well-meaning advice. You do have unique strengths to succeed in your own way - I have the power of an existing clientele, public speaking skills, so I don't need to watch any video on AI or automation of videos. 

My voice is enough to carry me through.

Instead, you must take aggressive action, then roll with the punches arising from negative feedback. You only seek to learn something new if you're stuck on a problem. Otherwise, only kinetic action will get you to the next payment milestone. 

Moving forward, while doing more videos, I will slowly pick up basic copywriting skills, design methodology and digital marketing as core disciplines to drive all areas of my business.

With this milestone, you can expect more material to arrive after CPF week, and this includes a fairly lengthy collaboration with a more successful channel on YouTube.

Thank you, once again!