How This Couple Makes $5K/Month Generating Content About Ways To Make Money Online
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
I am Chhavi, the founder and owner of the blog and YouTube channel Mrs Daaku Studio along with my husband Amit.
Our blog and YouTube channel are a one-stop-shop to find legitimate work from home jobs and creative ways to make money online.
We will tell you exactly how to start working from home and what are your best options.
There was a point in time that we had no clue about working from home, struggled every single day, and cried on the bathroom floor but we made it happen - we have three successful businesses, a freelance writing business, this blog, and our YouTube channel.
We aim to encourage everyone out there who wants to achieve financial freedom, work from home, and take a chance on themselves to follow their heart.
Our work and insights have also been featured on leading publications like Business Insider,Reader's Digest, Go Banking Rates, Yahoo Finance, MSN, and many more.
We have two flagship products that we sell to accelerate the growth of our readers.
The first product is The Client Magnet Bundle which is designed for beginner freelancers. It is a customized bundle which includes 20+ pre-made templates, checklists, and bonus guides to help you run a profitable freelancing "grow up" business even if you've no idea what you're doing and you're still not 100 percent confident that you're good enough at the service you're providing.
The Client Magnet Bundle covers everything from goal setting, time planning, pitching, media kits/resumes, even how to build an entire website that convinces a client to hire you even before they talk to you.
The second product is The Content Mojo which is designed for new bloggers. It has 10+ checklists, guides, workbooks, and video training to help you run a profitable blog that others will be “jealous of” even if you’ve no idea what you are doing, you still don’t have a monetization strategy and you don’t know what SERP is.
The Content Mojo covers everything from blog structure, how to create an effective content strategy, how to write your posts, basic search engine optimization for blog posts, blog planner, and much much more. So.. you never quit blogging and create content that readers (and..Google bots) LOVE.
We earn anywhere between $5-7k a month with our online business. Both Amit (my husband and co-founder) and I have quit our day job, travel anytime we like, and live a free, fun, and flexible life.
Our blog, YouTube channel, and products are designed to help you achieve what we have (...and, more).
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I am a licensed attorney in India and right after my master’s in law, I started working with a leading company as a lawyer. I worked there for about two years before I quit my job to become more location independent.
Choose a niche in whatever you start. It is critical for streamlining your efforts and make money.
My job paid me well but I worked 12 hours a day, I was exhausted by the end of each day, spent my weekends sleeping and I almost quit the things I liked to do - for example, sketching, yoga, traveling, etc.
I had to do something about it so I researched and found out that freelance writers can make a fortune. I actually ended up reading about the story of Holly Johnson and Elna Cain - which really inspired me.
So, I started with that and was able to make profits pretty quickly. My husband, Amit, was already working from home at that time with Linaro, a company based out of Cambridge (they were entirely remote).
After a few years, as we looked back and celebrated our achievements, we realized many many more people want to work from home, start freelancing, or are interested in side hustles but have no idea where to find legit information or even how to start.
This was our aha moment and we started our blog. By this time, we knew how well a blog can earn but the first blogger to inspire us was Paulo Rollo of the Beauty Through Imperfection.
Finally, the one thing that differentiates us from others is that we truly care for the success of our readers (email us and you’ll hear from us!) and our personal experience with remote working in the past. We remember the struggles, we really do!
We share job leads, offers, and insights into building an online business every week with our subscribers. You can sign up here.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
My first ever product was The Client Magnet Bundle. It is a logical extension of our free ebook - The Battle of Options - which helps you understand what your location independent job options are and how to select the best work from home options for yourself. You can grab it here.
When I started as a freelance writer, I made a lot of mistakes. This is the sole reason it took some time for me to start making a liveable income from the venture.
One of those mistakes was not having a simple system in place which portrays you as a professional writer. That means you have a process and branding in place.
You have discovery calls, proposals, contracts, invoices, resumes, etc. All of them are branded and reflect on your work. It shows that you know what you are doing - which is important to be able to control conversations with clients and convince them to pay you a higher rate.
If you don’t do this, clients just push you around and lowball you. This was my personal experience but in those 2 years, I networked with many aspiring and successful writers who had similar experiences.
That is what got me to make an affordable product that can help freelance writers all over the world to start the right way.
I validated the idea by asking about it on my Facebook group of 1200+ members and an email list of 7000+ subscribers. They were all very excited about this product idea and also gave suggestions on what they would like in the product.
So, I considered that and created something that WILL help you.
My second product which is very recent, in fact, I released it this month is “The Content Mojo.”
Again, this is a logical extension to my free ebook - The Blogging Headway - which has three items. The first one is a checklist that helps you focus on the right things as a new blogger, 17 tips from 5 and 6 figure bloggers on how to drive traffic, and Accelerated Headway which tells you how to start (from choosing a niche to set up Google Analytics and Search Console, etc). You can grab it here.
A huge percentage of my subscribers and Facebook Members are interested in starting a blog BUT the one problem which everyone faces (I know this because they have written to me several times asking for help) is how to start writing.
How is it that many new bloggers can drive tonnes of traffic even with their very first post? And, trust me, I get this. I was there at one point in time and I quit blogging.
Working as a freelance writer for big clients helped me understand how content strategy works and how there is no point in writing what you think your audience wants.
In The Content Mojo, I take you through every single trick I have learned to get your content right and drive traffic from the beginning.
It has my secret tips to find the best keywords, how to structure a post, how to optimize it for SEO etc. There is just SO much in it!
Describe the process of launching the business.
I will tell you about both freelance writing and blogging. Let’s start with the first one.
Diversify. The online world is volatile and it keeps changing. You want to diversify income streams.
The first and foremost thing I did was to read everything I could find on authoritative blogs on freelance writing. I read Carol Tice, Gina Horkey, Elna Cain, and Holly Johnson.
I wrote down every important point they had to say and in 2 weeks, I had an action plan.
I knew what I had to do, so I spent time getting everything in order - a writer’s website, invoice app, local taxation license, social media optimization, etc.
In the third week, my focus was to get clients and networks. That’s all. I spent 4-5 hours each day networking with clients on Facebook Groups, LinkedIn, Twitter, or sending pitches to clients (job boards, cold pitching, etc). I landed a few clients before the end of that month. I think I made somewhere around $800-900.
It gave me the confidence to go all in and give it my best. There was no looking back. Along the way, I also invested in tools and courses to be able to scale my business - which I should have done earlier. That’s the only regret I have.
Let’s talk about blogging.
I started a travel blog in 2016 and quit. I was so overwhelmed - I did a lot of things wrong (like a LOT).
Fast forward, July 2018 - I decided to give myself 6 months to make it work and invested in two courses - one was to learn Pinterest and another was to learn affiliate marketing.
Both of them paid for themselves within 3 months when I made my first $100.
That gave me the confidence to invest more and learn. So I invested in blogging courses, ebooks, and training.
Thanks to that investment and learning, I was able to make a full-time income with my blog before the end of the year.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
The one thing that really does work is niching down. Whether it was freelance writing or blogging, I niched down and created a target audience.
I wrote to them. I wrote to solve their problem and “boom”, it worked.
The other part that really helped us grow was to focus on SEO. Unlike social media where the traffic is not qualified, SEO sends very targeted traffic to your blog or website. That means, conversions.
If you are a blogger, I highly recommend investing in Mike Pearson of Stupid Simple SEO.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Today, we have more time in hand to do things we love. Our blog is doing better than expected (even during these times), and we have cut down on freelancing. That was always the plan though.
We are instead focusing on growing our YouTube channel and reach out to people who prefer videos over text. This year, we plan to reach the monetization thresholds with YouTube.
Besides that, we are focusing on diversification through email lists, Facebook Ads, sponsored work, etc.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
- Choose a niche in whatever you start. It is critical for streamlining your efforts and make money
- Invest in yourself. It is easier to follow a roadmap which has led to success for many instead of going through the trial and error method. The latter also kills your motivation.
- Master one skill before you move on to the next. If you take up everything together, you will overwhelm yourself.
- Diversify. The online world is volatile and it keeps changing. You want to diversify income streams - that could mean - digital products, ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, starting an online store, selling physical products and so much more.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
There are many. We use:
- Tailwind
- Mailerlite
- SendOwl
- Gumroad
- Elementor Pro
- Canva Pro
- Trello
- Ahrefs
- Keysearch
- WordPress
- BigScoots
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I love the Theory of Content. It is a podcast by Mediavine and it is filled with amazing information. It is one of the reasons why my content does so well!
Besides that, I also love to hear I AM CEO by Gresham Harkless. He interviews lots of entrepreneurs and it is very inspiring to learn from others. I was lucky to be interviewed by him last year. You can check it out here.
Besides that, there are many other resources, books, and podcasts that I love. I keep talking about them to my email subscribers. So, if you want to learn more about them, you can sign up here.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting?
Just do it. Give it your best and don’t keep falling back on alternatives or get stuck into “what else can I do with this”.
Also - don’t strive for perfection at the start. Strive to get things done and keep moving.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Actually, yes. I am looking to hire a Facebook Ads manager and Pinterest VA.
Where can we go to learn more?
- Mrs Daaku Studio
- Facebook Group
- Email - Work from home and Blogging (these are two different lists so whichever you are interested in, you can sign up for that)
- YouTube Community
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below or email me.
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
