Natalie Fischer
Being an investing influencer started as a hobby for Natalie Fischer during the pandemic. Now, it's her full-time job.
Like many people, Fischer started seriously getting into the stock market in 2020. The pandemic was a prime entry point: markets were volatile, rates were low, and she had built up a healthy level of savings.
She began sharing her investing journey on social media through Instagram stories and received an outpouring of feedback and questions from family and friends. Fischer couldn't keep up with the barrage of DMs and started a TikTok account, @investwithnat, to create videos answering common investing questions.
In 2023, Fischer took a leap of faith and quit her corporate job to focus full time on finance content creation as a solopreneur, or a one-person business. Now, Fischer creates videos about financial independence on social media platforms and partners with different brands to create user-generated content.
She's been quite successful: so far in 2024, Fischer's brought in over $150,000 in revenue, contracts viewed by Business Insider show. And that's in an increasingly cutthroat creator economy — according to Goldman Sachs, only around 4% of content creators globally generate over $100,000 a year.
If you want to transform your content creation side hustle into an actual career, Fischer has the following advice.
Fischer's success didn't emerge overnight. She started creating TikToks in 2020 but didn't actually start money until a year and a half later, primarily through producing user-generated content for companies. From there, Fischer began getting more sponsorships. She did this while working her full-time job as a data analyst.
"The best way to transition is to actually just start that project on the side while you're working a full-time job and basically wait to see how it goes," Fischer told Business Insider in an interview.
It's helpful to collect data on how your content is performing and monitor progress. Fischer waited until she had a year and a half of revenue data from her side hustle before deciding to take the leap.
"If I just quit my job not knowing how much money I was going to make, that would just be so stressful," Fischer said.
Once Fischer realized the paychecks from her side hustle were at the same level as the paychecks from her corporate job, she felt confident enough to go all in.
It's standard budgeting practice to have an emergency fund that can cover three to six months of living expenses. As a solopreneur, Fischer made sure she had not one, but two, emergency funds: one for personal use and one for her business, with enough money to cover six months of expenses for each.
Having a backup plan gave Fischer more bandwidth to focus on growing her business. A business emergency fund also ensured that Fischer would be able to sustain her business even if it encountered financial challenges as she transitioned to becoming a full-time content creator.
If being a solopreneur didn't work out, Fischer's backup plan was to go back to the corporate world, and the emergency fund would help Fischer weather the financial transition.
"That gave me a lot of comfort knowing that if worse comes to worse, I can always get another job," Fischer said.
Part of the reason why Fischer wanted to prepare emergency funds was because, unlike receiving a steady biweekly check in the corporate world, her monthly income as a solopreneur fluctuates.
The unpredictability of her income can make financial planning more challenging. Fischer makes sure she has a variety of income streams so she's not overly reliant on a single source of revenue.
Fischer built her baseline income around user-generated content by signing contracts to create content for companies' social media pages, websites, or advertisements. These contracts are month-to-month and easy to project. On the other hand, the frequency of sponsorships are more variable and therefore harder to forecast.
Fischer is also looking to upskill and expand into interactive events. She recently completed her certification in financial education and hosted a money workshop at a conference. Thinking ahead about new business lines, Fischer has her eyes on being a speaker at universities and schools.
Being a solopreneur and working a corporate role aren't diametrically opposed.
A year after quitting her 9-to-5, Fischer is now considering getting a part-time corporate role in addition to running her own business.
"I'd be interested in a part-time project management or marketing role to diversify and expand my potential," Fischer said.
Not only does a part-time role provide more predictable income streams, it also provides exposure to new work environments and skills. Fischer has found that as a full-time content creator, she has a lot more flexibility with her time than she did at a traditional office job. Fischer has seen fellow solopreneurs balance a content creation business, a corporate role, and even write a book at the same time.
Fischer's takeaway from the last year of running her own business is to not limit your options as a solopreneur — there are countless ways to build your brand and business.
"I found that I have a lot more time on my hands, and so I'm able to explore different avenues," Fischer said. "I can do it all."
Are you a successful solopreneur looking to share your story? Reach out to Christine Ji at cji@businessinsider.com
