Start small and experiment with platforms: Victoria began her content journey on Medium with a simple blog post about Google Ads. Despite earning only $7 in her first month, she saw the potential in content monetization.
Own your audience: While Medium provided a solid audience and revenue stream, Victoria realized her business was dependent on the platform. She launched her website and newsletter to ensure access while using Medium as a marketing tool and revenue source.
Niche to grow: Victoria published three different newsletters but couldn’t monetize them well. She narrowed down to one newsletter covering growing a solo entrepreneurial business through search engine optimization (SEO).
Think evergreen: Timeless products can help create stable revenue. Victoria’s first ebook has sold over 350 copies and earned over $10K in revenue.
Diversify pricing: Victoria offers multiple price points for her audience, from $25 writing bundles to a 12-month content plan at almost $1K.

The Story of Victoria Kurichenko

Sometimes, the decision to become a full-time content entrepreneur is made for you. Victoria Kurichenko went all in because of her family’s needs related to the war in Ukraine. Luckily, she had experience in the marketing field and a side hustle on Medium, the social publishing channel.

Born and raised in Ukraine, Victoria has lived and worked around the globe. She moved to Budapest for her master’s degree and stayed in 2019 for a marketing role at UX Studio. She was promoted to SEO specialist, doubling organic search traffic and achieving top ranking for targeted keywords.

In 2020, she stumbled across the Medium platform and read stories about other content creators. Many of them shared what it is like to be your own boss and live life on your own terms. “These stories resonated with me. I was surprised that people could follow their dreams and live their lives like they wanted. So I was like, “OK, what will happen if I publish just one story?”

In April 2020, Victoria published her first Medium blog post about how to set up Google ads. She made $7 through Medium’s partner program, which rewards writers based on paid readers’ time on the content and other engagement signals.

Though a small amount, it shifted Victoria’s mindset, and she realized she could be successful without having to work for someone else.

Expanding beyond the Medium

Still employed full-time, Victoria continued writing and posting blog articles about SEO, content marketing, and digital growth strategies on Medium.

Within a few months, her articles gained traction. “I was thrilled when I made my first $100 online,” she says. She doubled down on writing, publishing consistently, and experimenting with different topics. By 2021, she was earning over $1K a month from her Medium content. Around the same time, she launched her website, Self Made Millennials, to experiment with marketing and SEO strategies.

Some readers reached out to ask for help with SEO, and Victoria added consulting services to the business. However, she had to turn down many opportunities because she didn’t have the bandwidth with her full-time job. But that also made her realize what could be possible if she dedicated more time to the business.

That time came in 2022 when the war in Ukraine broke out, forcing the Budapest resident to make quick decisions.

“My family was in Ukraine, and I had to make decisions about what happens next. How do I get my family out? Where will they stay and go next? I had to figure so many things out. Balancing a full-time job, my projects, and my solo business became quite challenging. This accelerated my decision to go solo,” she explains.

Eventually, Victoria was able to help her family leave Ukraine and come to live with her and her husband in Budapest. Victoria was grateful she could quit her traditional job for the more flexible entrepreneurial world when life demanded it.

Going full-time with clients

Victoria filled her roster of consulting clients and replaced the income from her full-time job almost immediately. As her business grew, she built a database of SEO writers to help with the work. As the company’s face, Victoria worked with clients on their overall goals and scope of work.

However, Victoria eventually found this model stressful and ineffective because the contracted writers couldn’t meet her standards. She constantly had to give feedback or correct their work.

Victoria had to make a decision: Should she continue as an SEO content writing agency or scale back as a solo entrepreneur? She chose the latter.

Growing her audience

The shift worked because Victoria’s newsletter and Medium audiences were growing, but it wasn’t easy. She published newsletters about writing on Medium, growing a website, and SEO, but she couldn’t figure out how to grow her brand with three different newsletters.

“I have a love-hate relationship with newsletters. I started three different newsletters with three different purposes, and it wasn’t working. I had to niche down,” she explains.

That newsletter is Contentpreneur Corner, where she covers her journey as a solopreneur and SEO tactics to grow a solo business.

Victoria credits Beehiiv, the newsletter platform, as a contributor to her business growth. She caught the attention of the Beehiiv team after writing a review of the platform as a non-user, which ranked high on Google and Medium. They did an interview with her.

In January 2023, Victoria switched her newsletter to the Beehiiv platform and later asked about a partnership with the brand. She now writes articles for its blog about her experience with Beehiiv and on topics related to her marketing expertise.

Victoria has now grown her audience to 10K subscribers using Medium as a lead generation tool and Beehiiv’s growth tools.

Generating revenue

In the early days on Medium, she regularly generated $1K a month from her content, but the revenue fluctuated monthly. Adding consulting services helped to stabilize her revenue, but Victoria knew she needed to add evergreen offerings to her business. She turned to digital products. In 2022, she created an SEO ebook, but her new website didn’t generate enough traffic to support a paid product. She knew she needed another solution.

Victoria stumbled on Gumroad, an online marketplace where entrepreneurs can create landing pages and start selling in minutes. It also offered Gumroad Discover, which promotes products within its ecosystem. To help generate interest, she mentioned the ebook on her website and in her Medium articles. In two years, she has sold over 350 copies of the SEO ebook, generating over $10K in sales.

Victoria added ebook products based on her best-performing articles. Her higher-priced digital offerings include an SEO bundle ($120), a writing bundle ($24.99), and a 12-month content writing plan ($997).

She also generates revenue through affiliate links on her recommended tools page. Victoria also does sponsorships and partnerships with companies and brands.

Her continued publishing on Medium has led her 350-plus articles to generate $25K in revenue. She still offers one-on-one consulting services but with a much smaller scope of work.

As part of her business model, Victoria is transparent about her earnings and metrics. This has become one of the more popular parts of her business as she writes a monthly recap report to show her audience the inner workings of her business.

The future

Victoria has recently streamlined her workflow to manage her growing business. She implemented automation tools for scheduling, email marketing, and SEO tracking. She also hired a virtual assistant to handle administrative tasks and social media promotion. This shift has allowed her to focus on content creation and higher-level strategy.

Victoria also focuses on scaling her revenue streams and reigning in her business model. She is experimenting with premium newsletter tiers. She is also working to increase her brand awareness on LinkedIn but drives all traffic back to her website and newsletter to be independent of any single platform.

The post How Victoria Kurichenko Started on Medium and Built a Thriving Independent Content Business appeared first on The Tilt Publishing.

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