So i'm watching brainrot YouTubes one after another. Suddenly a wild Nick Saraev video pops up out of nowhere. And I'm like "Hey i know that guy!" We are Twitter mutuals, and we've had some fun exchanges in the past. I remembered Nick had an amazing backstory. Fast forward two years this dude now has 200k subs on YT?!? Hot damn. I gotta find out what he's been up to.
And that's how I ended up joining Maker School. So why? Quick backstory. I ran a restaurant for 13 years. Then sold it to "chase curiosity", as I like to call it. I wanted location independence, and work that I could do from a laptop anywhere in the world.
I've achieved that somewhat by doing client work (web development, social media content, etc.) for the last 5 years. I say "somewhat" because I have the location independence and the laptop work, but I haven't done the digital nomad thing. I got complacent and comfortable.
2026 I want to travel for real. The dream is to live in a different part of the world 6 months at a time. Meet people. Maybe even get married. But I don't want to live out of backpackers' hostels and eat rice and beans. At my age I want a touch of luxury. And one way to achieve that is to ramp up my agency work. That's where Maker School's day-by-day process comes in.
Real talk: I don't know how this programme will pan out. My fear is that I can't get clients if I'm not in the US timezone. My English is exceptional but I do not have a North American accent when speaking. This makes me not confident about recording videos or taking calls.
But imma brave up and commit to it anyway.
For accountability, I'll document this journey here every day as we go along.
I have a degree in Marketing Management from University of Otago, New Zealand. I ran a successful restaurant for 13 years in Singapore, a brutally competitive market for F&B. I also ran a bakery for 7 of those years. I sold both businesses for 6 figures in 2019.
Then I taught myself to code, and have been working in software since. In 2021, I was hired as General Manager for a restaurant software startup, where I helped market and grow the app to $400k/year revenue.
On the side, I started building my own small projects, aimed at near-passive income. So began a 10,000-hour-long experiment to see if I can make $10k/month by "f*cking around and finding out". This blog is a daily record of the real hours spent & dollars earned.