Ep 40: The Woke Salaryman (ft. He Ruiming & Goh Wei Choon) - on building a 400+k following in less than 2 years!

He Ruiming & Goh Wei Choon are the Singaporean/Malaysia duo behind The Woke Salaryman: an incredible personal finance page that educates people about making better financial and life choices through the use of simple albeit beautiful comics. Since 2019, they have rapidly grown to over 204k followers on Instagram & 218k on Facebook - and we spend this STIMY interview uncovering how they first met and began building their Woke Salaryman brand: creating a consistent publishing schedule, dividing the work among themselves, getting their first piece of sponsored content, negotiating with clients, their thoughts on what the secrets are to virality, expanding the team and more. 3:27: Wei Choon’s love of animation since young 4:39: The impact that the 1997 economic crisis had on Ruiming 5:53: How Ruiming was blogging & writing gossipy columns in school 7:44: How Wei Choon & Ruiming met at Ngee Ann Polytechnic 12:23: Not letting anything sully his art 13:57: Wei Choon’s wake up moment when he graduated with a $25k debt 21:23: The meaning behind creating “impact” 25:27: The “secret” to creating viral content 26:14: Where virality was attached to their sense of self-worth 31:52: How Wei Choon got into personal finance 33:03: What “being rich” means to Wei Choon 34:10: Writing the viral article on saving $100,000 before turning 30 37:48: The start of the Woke Salaryman 39:31: Figuring out the division of labour 42:40: How they stayed consistent in publishing regular content 46:56: Discovering that financial planners were stealing the Woke Salaryman content 53:38: Planning to go full-time on the Woke Salaryman 56:34: The “secret” behind the virality of the Woke Salaryman, which is now over 204k strong on Instagram! 57:18: Building a passionate community 59:35: Getting their first sponsored post from CPF 1:01:49: Staying true to their values & turning away opportunities 1:06:02: Negotiating with clients 1:07:25: Expanding the team for the Woke Salaryman 1:15:45: Biggest highlights to date 1:17:31: What drives Wei Choon & Ruiming 1:21:32: Tangible steps for people to begin their personal finance journey 1:25:27: Advice for content creators 1:28:32: What Clubhouse means to them 📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/40 💌 Sign up for the weekly STIMY newsletter: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605