How a College Student Built a Personal Finance Blog to $9.5K a Month

Who built it, and what they built

Sayan Neogie is the founder and owner of Prosmartrepreneur, a personal finance and entrepreneurship blog based in Adra. He started the site in 2018 while still in college, originally as a way to earn money on the side.

He trained as an engineering student but says he was put off by the idea of a 9-to-5 career before he even graduated. He had not even heard of blogging as a profession until college.

Where the idea came from

Before blogging, Sayan tried other online income routes, including YouTube and social media marketing, but none of them worked out. The turning point came when he read about a blogger earning more than $100,000 a month from her site.

He reached out to established bloggers to understand how a blog is built and monetized, then jumped in. By 2019, a year after starting, the blog was generating what he describes as a full-time income while he was still a student.

How they built the first version

The setup was deliberately simple: pick a domain, buy hosting from a provider like Bluehost, and start publishing content around the blog's topic. He describes starting a blog as something that can be done in minutes.