I Turned My Side Hustle Into A $100,000 Business As A Singapore Content Creator

Four years ago, I had $17 to my name. Now, I’m on track to make $100,000 as a content creator and coach — here’s how I turned my side hustle into a six-figure reality.

Like many Gen-Z creators, I started posting on TikTok for fun during COVID. One day, a year or so later, a video of me code-switching between a British and Singaporean accent went viral — and suddenly, I went from full-time drama teacher to the “Ang Moh Singaporean” girl. But at the time, I wasn’t ready to take it seriously. I told myself I was an artist, not an influencer. I’d trained for over a decade in theatre. I wasn’t about to “sell out” and post videos online.

Meanwhile, I was working 50-hour weeks as a teacher, earning around $42,000 a year before CPF. I loved the students, but I was burning out more than I was actually enjoying being in my 20s. Living paycheque to paycheque, anxious about money, and telling myself this was just what adult life looked like for me. The breaking point came when I woke up one morning with $17 in my bank account, with rent still due in 2 weeks. That was my wake-up call. I couldn’t keep doing this — not emotionally, and definitely not financially. Something had to change, and that something was me.

Everything shifted the day I stopped treating myself like someone who just “made videos for fun” and told people “content creation is just a side hustle.” I decided to start treating myself like a business. The moment I decided to take myself seriously on social media, everything else fell into place. I realised my self-esteem directly shaped my income: low self-worth meant low rates; insecurity meant saying yes to anything a client wanted, even when it diluted my voice (or drowned it). Once I began seeing my content as strategy, as well as understanding the power of community, I gained confidence to negotiate, to push back on weak briefs, and to create work that felt true to me.

For the next couple of years, I grew my online brand in ways I didn’t think were possible. Having a full-time job gave me just enough stability to start saying no — no to underpaid gigs, no to “exposure,” no to clients who wanted control over my creative. I took bigger swings with my pitches, pushed for ideas that felt aligned, and built boundaries I never had before. I wasn’t trying to be an influencer; I was learning how to be a businesswoman. I went from being paid $400 a video, to $3800 a video in two years. What changed wasn’t my audience size or following; there were no viral videos or mega-million views - what changed was my approach. I stopped selling “a piece of content” and started selling the thinking behind it — strategy, storytelling, and measurable results.

Once I began positioning myself as a creative partner instead of a vendor, brands treated me differently too. The work became more collaborative, the budgets got bigger, and I finally felt like I was being paid for my expertise, not just my output. When you start getting paid your monthly work salary for one TikTok video, your perspective starts to shift. I took the leap, and went full-time into content.

Within four months, I’d doubled my monthly salary. Then tripled it. By September that year, I’d hit my first five-figure month. Fast-forward to 2025, and I now average between $8,000 and $10,000 a month — sometimes more. It took four years of trial and error, late nights, failed pitches, and rebuilding trust after mistakes. Nothing about this was overnight. My first year of full-time creating brought in about $70,000. I had turned myself into a business, but the next logical step was to actually build one. In 2024, I registered ANGMORE Media under ACRA, opened a business bank account, and started to think bigger. 

My business income now comes from three main sources: retainer clients, brand partnerships, and creator coaching calls. I still take on theatre or teaching projects occasionally — performing will always be part of me — but my business is what keeps the lights on. About half of what we earn goes straight back into operating costs: rent, bills, equipment, tech subscriptions (Canva, Notion, Milanote, Google Workspace, CapCut, ChatGPT, Calendly, iCloud), domain fees, and my small but mighty team (a virtual assistant, editor, videographer, co-strategist, photographer, lawyer). There are government filings, bank fees, expenses for work events, travel, and the random extra costs that come with running a modern digital business — everything from hard drives to lawsuit filing charges. These expenses are anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 a month depending on the project load.

It’s a lot. But it’s also incredibly rewarding. I’m no longer a one-woman show, and that’s something I’m proud of. Having a small team means I can focus on what I do best — creative strategy, storytelling, and helping other creators and businesses build confidence in their own voices online.

None of this came from luck or connections. It came from learning to value my own work, and understanding that even creativity needs infrastructure. You don’t need to have it all figured out to start treating your craft seriously; you just need to believe that what you’re building is worth something.

I started with $17 and a story to tell. And now, I get to share that story with you on F Zine, a magazine I used to pick up and flip through the pages of on my way to university.