Welcome to the Portfolio Career Series: a weekly email series to help you build your portfolio career strategically, sustainably and mindfully.
Previous episodes:
Episode 1: What the heck is a Portfolio Career
Episode 2: How to launch your 1:1 coaching from zero
Episode 4: How to build and scale a paid community
Episode 5: Turning your book into a business
Episode 6: Launching your B2B offer
We will wrap up the series with an exclusive Business Roundtable:
📍Session America: 19 August 8pm
📍Session Europe: 20 August 8am UK
Register now for 59 US$ (FREE for paid subscribers).
Today we are putting all the pieces together to see what a Portfolio Career actually looks like in practice with real examples and numbers.
Hello!
I just came back to Hong Kong after a month of holidays in Spain and it was amazing to switch off, spend quality time with my family and do some planning for my business while enjoying the colors of the Atlantic from my little spot in the Canary Islands.
While I was there, many friends and relatives asked me about my business and how I was able to transition from 15+ years in the corporate world to having a one-person business from my laptop.
Many would love to start their own thing to have more freedom and flexibility so they can work from anywhere and do their work around their lifestyle and not the other way around.
I honestly believe in the future, most people will work for themselves on their terms in the open market and be their own boss.
So today, I want to give you a sneak peek into my own creative business, with details and numbers so you can get a glimpse of the possibilities. Let’s go from theory to practice - the good stuff.
Below are the 7 pillars of my business and how they all fit into the bigger ecosystem.
Disclaimer: I’m still figuring things out, and this is not a perfect business, but it’s where I am today after 3+ years, having fun in the messy middle.
Examples: Substacks in English and Spanish
Fee: 129US$ Annual/ 238 US$ Founding Members
My Substack took off both in terms of growth and monetization in mid-2024 (Bestseller badge) and since then, it’s been a stable source of recurring revenue (1,500 US$- 2,500 US$ per month combined).
Against mainstream belief, the secret (at least in my case) was not to write more or offer more perks, but to be more intentional and targeted with the what/how and who.
My ideal reader wants to grow a sustainable creative business but struggles with the strategic side to monetize. That’s where I come. I don’t do tactical stuff, templates or copy-paste frameworks. I help people build a strategy that turns their hobby into a business by thinking like an entrepreneur.
That’s it.
Every single piece of content addresses that pain point and helps my subscribers get closer to their objective.
This is my strategy to gain paid subscribers:
- 1-2 Weekly Posts with strategies to build a digital business (like this one)
- Paywall before the implementation (people pay more for the how-to than for the education)
-2 Weekly Group Chats to drive engagement and build community (1 free, 1 paid)
- 1 Monthly Business Roundtable for my premium members to go deep into a specific topic and exchange best practices. Next one is on Portfolio Careers.
- Targeted offers to my most loyal readers: I don’t blast promotions but I like sending special deals for special occasions (every 2-3 months).
Right now I have a one-off offer for those who want to join my Portfolio Career Roundtable.
💡 Tip: Don’t try to be everything for everyone. Pick your lane, define your what-who-how and show your readers how you can help them. Then do it again in every touchpoint.
Examples: Keynotes, webinars, workshops, panels for corporate
Fee: 3-5K US$ per session (60-90 minutes)
I’ve been doing paid public speaking since early 2023, and it has been an effective way of leveraging all my years of corporate experience and turning them into paid gigs. You can see my previous gigs on my website.
Landing the first paid client was the hardest bit and my key tip is to find opportunities to speak in public for free to build your brand and gain credibility. The money will follow.
Start small, get on stage, ask for referrals and testimonials and invest in a professional infrastructure (a simple website, a professional email and a LinkedIn presence).
Today, my clients are large organizations and I travel internationally to speak at conferences, but I started from zero too and broke through the clutter by putting myself out there (it was not always pretty).
💡Tip: If you want a roadmap to get paid to speak, you can still join my Public Speaking Bootcamp in September. Details here.
Examples: Workshops and corporate training
Fee: 1,000 US$+ (depends on the project)
I often partner with companies in the corporate training space that need my skillset for their own clients. They are usually friends of mine and people I enjoy working with and whenever they have an opportunity in my field (leadership, DEI, culture), they ask me to tac-team as a facilitator.
Freelancing is not as profitable as having direct clients but it’s a great way to get started and tap into someone else’s network. I often partner with my friend Melanie Staunton, Founder of Communicate, on sessions related to inclusive leadership, and we have an absolute blast, plus I always learn from her (she’s the most amazing communicator!).
Earlier this year, we co-hosted 2 sessions for a Global Investment Consultant and the feedback from the client was excellent! LinkedIn testimonial here.
💡Tip: Tap into your own network and identify 2-3 contacts that could require your expertise and schedule a discovery call to explore collaborations.
Example: 1-hour Strategy session
Fee: 199US$
Personalized coaching/ consulting is the low-hanging fruit when you are starting your Portfolio Career because you only need to convince one person.
I launched my 1:1 coaching in June 2024 to help writers and creators with the strategy part of their business (how to effectively turn a skill into an offer). Since then, I’ve coached 200+ writers, authors and solopreneurs.
Nowadays, I have fewer clients because I’ve increased my prices and it’s not something I actively promote (it’s not scalable), but I like having this option available for people in my community who prefer a more personalized service.
💡Tip: Keep it simple: Add it as a perk in your paid subscription or create a Stripe link and promote it in the CTA in your emails.
Examples: Cohorts and bootcamps
Fee: 2K-3K US$ per cohort
I love group coaching because of the peer-to-peer dynamic; everyone brings a different perspective and experience and we always learn better when we work as a Sounding Board.
In 2025, I launched a Substack publication dedicated to group coaching, The Lemon Tree Academy and that’s where I host all my programs. Currently, I'm focusing on the next cohort for Public Speaking Bootcamp.
💡Tip: Once you are comfortable with 1:1 coaching, try a few one-off group sessions (webinar/ masterclass) for free to get confidence and mileage and then create a small cohort as a pilot.
Example: Digital courses
Fee: 88US$-128 US$
I launched my first digital course in 2025 and it was a lightbulb moment because I realized that my pre-existing content had the potential to become evergreen and generate passive income in the background.
My first course, How To Win on Substack brought in 7,500+ US$ by repackaging my strategies and adding how-to videos into a structured system to grow and monetize your publication.
Since then, I have published 3 more courses, the latest one being The Anti-Procrastinator based on the book with the same name.
Mini-Courses are my absolute favorite digital product because they are easy to build, easy to sell (your most loyal readers/ paid subscribers are likely to become your first students) and easy to complete. I usually create them in less than 30 days and the production cost is literally zero. If you are interested in launching your own, you can take a look at How To Build A Digital Course in 30 Days.
💡Tip: Pick a topic you have enough content about; divide it into 8 lessons and turn it into a micro-course on Gumroad that you can offer for free as a perk to your paid subscribers.
My books: 2 self-published and 2 with publishers
Fee: 5 US$-20 US$
I self-published my first book, The Lemon Tree Mindset, in February 2023, and it was the seed of my entire business ecosystem. To this day, it remains the most important work I ever published: the 19 lessons I used to reinvent myself.
Last week I wrote about books, getting publisher deals and why 90% of self-published books make less than 100 US$. You can read it here.
I will just add that I’m a big advocate of incorporating books into your Portfolio Career, not because of the royalties (I make peanuts from those), but because they add a layer of authority and credibility no other pillar does.
I’m actually starting a new book as we speak. This one is totally different from everything I’ve published in the past. It’s on Inclusive Language, a topic I talk about in many of my corporate keynotes and workshops. It’s totally unrelated to what I write about here and that’s precisely what I love about having a Portfolio Career: you can grow, explore and expand without having to worry about the niche police.
From a strategy perspective, my goal with this new book is to position myself as a go-to person on inclusive language so that more companies book me for talks and conferences.
💡Tip: Use the power of books to help you build your name in your field and create an amplifier of the work you are already doing.
As you see, every pillar plays its own role and you don’t have to limit yourself to one niche, one industry or one color. This is the summary of my portfolio:
1. Paid subscriptions
2. Public speaking
3. Freelancing
4. One-to-one coaching
5. Group coaching
6. Digital Courses
7. Books
The bottom line is this: build something that suits you and your lifestyle.
I love wearing a nice dress and going to an office somewhere in Hong Kong to deliver a keynote on leadership but I also love sending this newsletter every week from my PJs while my kids sleep to talk about mindset and strategy and connect with my subscribers on my group chat.
I create courses on topics I’m passionate about, whether it’s productivity, public speaking, or how to grow your community on Substack.
I teach what I learn through bootcamps and cohorts and I keep writing books to challenge myself to learn more and become better at what I do.
The beauty of having a Portfolio Career is that it keeps changing and evolving as you learn new skills and explore new areas.
The goal is to build something structured enough to make it your business and flexible enough to make it your lifestyle.
It’s up to you to pick your colors!
Ready to invest in your own Portfolio Career and build a business on your terms?
Upgrade now to join my Business Roundtable on 19-20 August!
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