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Vincent Chan: “I quit my job in finance, and now I make more money by creating content”
Vincent Chan quit his white collar job in finance and now makes more money by creating content through platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Vincent Chan, a Chinese immigrant who moved to the United States with his blue collared parents is now teaching young Americans how to live a financially independent life. But did you know he actually quit his $120,000 finance job to become a Youtuber? Here's his story.
Chan hails from a lower-middle-class family and has faced multiple financial struggles over the years to now become a successful influencer. From no network and reference in the finance space to following a monotonous work life where there is too much bureaucracy. He recently spoke his heart out to Business Insider and mentioned how he soon realised corporate life wasn't meant for him. ‘Everyone was trying to impress their respective bosses to try to get a raise or get that promotion,’ he stated.
Struggling with a stressful routine he recalled having no friends and family life. ‘These experiences helped me realize that I had nothing. I had no time to live after work. I wasn't the nicest person to my family. I had no time for friends, I had no time for my social life. And essentially everything I did, I lived to work for this company.’ he mentioned.
After all the hard work of 60-80 hours per week he was putting in, he realised that he was only working towards building dreams of a big company whereas he can use the time to build his own dreams. 'It took me a while to realize the company doesn't really care about me.' furthering realising that 'I could die tomorrow and they'd just find someone else to replace me, and then in a day or two, no one would remember that I even existed at that corporation.'
That's when he decided to quit and is now making more money. But before venturing into entrepreneurship Vincent set up a financial safety net so that if a time of emergency were to occur, he would have something to rely on. ‘My biggest advice for people who want to quit, or for people who are in a high-paying/high-pressure role is to brush up on personal finance skills. If you have the safety net, you have more options.’
His Youtube bio reads - 'Hi, I'm Vincent! I'm on a mission to help you live a wealthier and healthier life'. He has 530,000 subscribers on YouTube, and his content is made for financial literacy, often delivered with laced dry humor.
Other than videos Vincent also manages a finance newsletter that aims to give investors news-based content without having to spend hours of their time going through sources such as the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times. A project of which he is also most proud is the ‘content creator accelerator', and he is now passionate about starting a business that caters to newsletters, businesses, and creators. It works purely on a subscription basis.
His major source of revenue comes from attracting a list of followers to his social platform outreach, and he calls himself an investor, which is a trend most influencers try to match up to in today's world. His subscription-based platforms are eventually complimented by the same.
