Friend: “You did WHAT?”

Me: “Yup…”

Friend: “Why… Just Why?”

Me: “Scalability”

Friend: “Scala-what? Do you know how long it would take you to possibly earn a cent on Youtube?”

Me: “Let me explain…”

It feels like yesterday when I applied for my first freelancing job on freelancer.com. This was the beginning of a series of struggles and disappointment that eventually led to what many would call success.

When I started this, there was one thing that made me stand out. I loved entrepreneurship. If you check my bookshelf, you will know what I mean.

Freelancer.com was quite a disappointing experience that led me to quit freelancing. Yet, a couple of years later, I tried another website, and boy was this experience a roller coaster of emotions.

It was called Upwork, and I understood that it was a couple of websites that merged (Elance and oDesk). The Upwork experience made me gain enormous confidence as a business consulting freelancer. I’ve worked with tens of wonderful clients with outstanding businesses and one indecent client.

I’ve made over $100,000 on Upwork, but there was one problem — that one indecent client.

This led to Upwork asking me for a $12,500 refund as this client had used another person’s credit card for over two years and freezing my withdrawals.

Hi! I’m Al, a business consultant in Zurich, Switzerland. I have been working as a freelance business consultant for over five years and in this entrepreneurial world for over ten years.

This led to one of the biggest lessons I’ve had so far in this business world — “Never trust a single income stream, whatever it is.”

At that time, my cash flow was decreasing in a volatile scary manner. So, I realized that I needed to move on swiftly. Given my experience, I put my eggs in three baskets.

1. The Upwork Alternative — Fiverr

I knew it was competing with Upwork. Hence, I gave it a shot; it went perfectly well. I have made in around six months approximately $25k using Fiverr.

But then the actual problem started to build up in my brain. I am relying on clients and buyers. My business model is a business-to-business model, which is not a problem at this stage.

2. My Own Freelancing Platform — Albusi

I had the know-how. I needed to start investing in getting clients on my own and linking them with the freelancers I have worked with for over three years.

All I needed was to market well and use my network. So far, my previous network has been the most revenue-generating channel I have had this year, with over $25k from a few clients.

Yet, now, I am exploring and learning how to market a freelance marketplace focused on business documents, which I know will be pretty challenging.

3. My Savior — Medium

My girlfriend: “What? Writing? Are you sure? Why don’t you apply for a real job instead? Zurich pays well…”

Me: “I want to experiment. It looks exciting.”

Then I wrote my first few articles and eventually made around $9.5k. Yet the feeling of enjoying typing each word is indescribable.

I’ve made more money on Upwork, Fiverr, and my network. Yet, I consider Medium to be my savior. Why?

It made me realize that I do not have to flip my whole world to please a single client. That there is another world full of people who could also value my experience.

My Brain: “I need to find something I love to work on.”

Upwork: “You can do it on your own terms, but you have to please clients if you want to keep working here.”

Fiverr: “Remember Upwork? We also need you to please clients very well. We will even send you email reminders and tips.”

Medium: “Just write, and if people like it, it will spread. Welcome to the world of content creation.”

My Brain: “Hang on. So I have to create content that I enjoy and pitch it perfectly to the world to enjoy, and that’s it?”

Medium: “Pretty much…”

Youtube and TikTok: “Psst, check us out if you like this content creation world.”

Again, I had one rule that I pinned to my wall — “Never trust a single income stream, whatever it is.”

Hence, while Medium is one of the best experiences I had in my work life, I have trust issues.

So I started my research. Of course, there were other websites that I could write on that have partner programs as well, like Quora. However, from my research, I understood that Medium is the top player in writing as a form of content creation.

Then I stumbled when I said the sentence above out loud — writing as a form of content creation. Are there other forms that have a higher reach?

Then I was shocked…

To be exact, YouTube has more than 2.6 billion monthly active users (globalmediainsight). I am sure there are repeated users and company accounts, so I wouldn’t say those active users are all unique. Some have multiple accounts.

Hence, it is probably not 33% of the human race, but the figure would still be quite shocking, even if it is around 10%.

So if there is a god of content creation, this is it.

Then I asked myself, “Are you comfortable recording videos for everyone?”

My brain responded initially with, “Ughh, what would my friends and family say if they saw me failing with 0 views.”

Then after a period of self-development and awareness, I realized that these thoughts are plain stupid. It does not matter for a second what anyone thinks. If this will benefit someone, then I ought to do it.

You can record Youtube videos using your phone’s camera. While that’s true, it’s also true that you can be successful on Upwork with an average picture. However, I know the Upwork game very well — compete or die.

I invested in creating a studio for $5k, which involved lights, a camera, a lens, a microphone, and some elements for the background.

I started creating a plan in which I record and publish thrice a week.

Then I started.

The first video, a guide about how to ace it on Upwork, should have been done in a week. Instead, it was done in around three weeks. Editing a 20-minute video takes a lot more time than I anticipated.

I would be able to perfect the process, yet I noticed it is incredibly time-consuming and won’t be rewarding even to cover costs for a very long time. So then, I thought I needed a bigger audience to start the monetization process while perfecting the recording and editing process.

There was another player in the market that grew beyond the dreams of most startups — TikTok. They reported that they now have one billion active users.

You know how fast this platform is growing when you find everyone around you using it. Hence, it was the perfect way to gather an audience to perfect this chain of operations.

Random Girl: “I work in a bank, what do you do?”

Me: “I am a freelancer.”

Random Girl: “What exactly do you freelance in?”

Me: “Business Documents”

Random Girl: “Like what?”

Me: “Business Plans and Pitch Decks”

Random Girl: “For whom exactly?”

Me: “Clients”

Random Girl: “From where?”

Me: *Leaving the room running from boredom.*

This type of conversation happens with almost every new person I meet. Sometimes I wish I could say— “Oh, I am a software developer at Google.”

However, now it is getting more complex. If it would be of value to you, here is my daily operations workflow.

1. Work with my marketing team to advertise my business consultancy freelancing marketplace. — Albusi.
2. Get clients to be able to afford rent. — Fiverr.
3. Expand my network in the writing aspect of content creation and grow more. — Medium.
4. Record long youtube videos that are actually beneficial to the viewers. — Youtube.
5. Assemble more subscribers and followers through shorts that would also add value. —TikTok and Youtube.

Working on those elements naturally takes time, which could have been spent on focusing, for example, on freelancing on Fiverr to build a more significant income stream. Yet, no matter how one expands on Fiverr, it would never be as scalable as Youtube or even Medium. So my questions to you are:

Do you like what you are doing? And is it scalable? For instance, can you help 1,000,000 people in a single minute?

Additionally, I would highly value reading your experiences and advice in the comments as I am sure it would benefit me and any other reader.

My channels are all under Al Anany. You can find me on google whenever you would like if you believe I could add more value to your business endeavors.

I’m Al, a business consultant in Zurich, Switzerland. I believe in the power of delivering value to you, the reader. Follow me on various social media platforms if you’re interested in the value of my content.