Hi, I’m Ting

And this is my story.

Long Story Short

My name is Wen Ting, but everyone (including my mom) calls me Ting. My friends describe me as ambitious, caring, daring and a little quirky. 

I am a digital entrepreneur with 6 years of online experience in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, writing, publishing, as well as tech and crypto.

I own an Amazon KDP publishing business that generates 12-15k revenue per month and more than a million dollars since I started. I also own a digital planner Etsy store, and I’m now actively building a blogging business and a personal brand.

I own location freedom and a bit of time freedom – I can work from anywhere in the world as long as there is internet connection and my laptop. For instance, I am now writing this bio in an 8-hour flight to Vietnam.

For the most part, my business is semi passive. I can decide when I work and when I don’t.

I’m working hard to gain the two other pieces of ultimate freedom: time freedom and financial freedom.

I’m into tech, traveling, learning languages, meeting like-minded people and having intellectually stimulating conversations.

If you also want to grow with me and learn together along the way, my blog is a great place for you to gain new knowledge and learn about the best tools to use.

If you want to read my life story and understand where I came from, because well, it was not all rainbows and butterflies, keep reading. You might find something you can resonate with.

Ready? Let me take you back to a little fishing village in Taiwan.

Where it all started 

I was born in 1990 in a small port town called Donggang in the south of Taiwan. With my younger brother, I-Chun, we grew up in a very modest old 3 story house. It was a pretty small town – no skyscrapers, no stressful life, and no people in suits rushing to their 9-5s. There were only lots of temples (think Mulan or Kungfu Panda), people selling tuna in the fish markets, and just people living a simple life.

But all my family was there, so at that time, that’s what I thought the world looked like. 

My parents weren’t born with a golden spoon, quite the contrary in fact. They worked hard to pass the government exam and both worked as civil servants in the Tax department. 

My parents focused a lot of their efforts on giving us the best education. So, at the age of 6 (a bit earlier than most kids in Taiwan), I started going to a “cram school” to learn English. Which, I feel extremely grateful for today. 

We also both started the Art program in our elementary school, where we would spend 6 hours per week learning art (painting, sculpture, and crafts). This certainly helped with my sense of design and creativity down the line.

Moving to a bigger city

At the age of 12, my parents decided that we needed a better environment for learning. At that time, I thought it was the end of the world. I was going to leave all my childhood best friends and start afresh in a new city, knowing absolutely no one. (Okay, there were my grandma and aunt) 

I spent the next 6 years here in Kaohsiung, the biggest city in the south of Taiwan, going through the toughest period of student life. 

Fast forward to college

With a lot of hard work during the last year of high school, I managed to get in one of the best universities in Taiwan for business majors and moved to Taipei.

It was a new found freedom, away from home and parents, so I made sure that I made good use of that. Partying, staying up late, and skipping classes. 

I soon realized that I hated my major – risk management and insurance. Sure, it was business stuff, but it was all calculus, life insurance and lots of (for me) unnecessary calculations. My gut feeling told me that this was not the path for me.

Two years went by, and I finally got a chance to work as an intern in a telemarketing company where my Swedish boss is really into entrepreneurship. 

During my internship, we had to help him start a platform for accountants and do some keyword research for SEO. But it was very basic and we didn’t dig deep into it.

I helped him organize a startup weekend taipei, and got to know lots of developers, founders, and investors in the tech industry. And boy was I hooked!

I loved everything about it, the new ideas, the fast pace, the exciting and innovative people. 

The third year of university, many of my friends were applying to go abroad for an exchange program, and I decided to do the same. I eventually went to a business school in France and spent a semester there. 

A miserable year working in Taipei

After coming back to Taiwan, I knew I wanted to go back to France, but I wanted to first have some work experience. I heard about how a PR agency is a good start for newly grads, so I applied to a few and got accepted into one of them. 

It was my first ever job working, and I soon learned the hard lesson that I was not made for it. 

I was working from 9am to 11pm everyday. When there were press releases, we needed to stay up till 2am days before the event to ensure all the documents for clients were well prepared. I had absolutely no life. 

I was too rebellious, questioning my company about a lot of ways of doing things, including how they run their social media platforms, and my boss wasn’t too happy about this. As a result, a few months later, I was fired. 

OMG. How embarrassing. My first ever job and I didn’t even stay more than a year. But turns out, it was the best thing that ever happened to me – you will know why later.

Paris, I am coming back for you

With lots of preparation going through the application process, 

I got into one of the most prestigious business schools in Paris, ESCP Europe (the French call “Grands Ecoles”) 

It was my “French dream” come true.

Back then I thought: another 2 years of business, and I was going to get a good corporate job in Paris, work my whole life and climb the corporate ladder, put money in an index fund for compound interests, and finally retire at 65 with a government pension.

Does it sound exciting? Not really, but I didn’t know there was another path.

That was my belief, because as I realized later in life…

None of my family members was into entrepreneurship.

Literally, zero. 

My mom wanted me to work for a big and stable Taiwanese corporate like Eva Air or an Electricity company; my dad wanted me to get a law degree and become a lawyer; and my grandma’s dream was for me to get a master degree in Japan, PhD in the US, then become a university professor. 

And even me, my dream for a long while was to get into the biggest cosmetic corporation in the world – L’Oréal.

Here’s how I failed yet another corporate job

In our business school, we had a choice to apply for an apprenticeship program. Essentially, we would be going to school 2 days per week and the rest of the days, we would be working in a company. Half of our master degree’s tuition would be paid for, and plus, we would receive a salary of 1000-1400 euros per month. 

It sounded like what I needed to not rely on my parents for money, so I fought hard to get it. It was not easy, but after hundreds of CVs and 5 months of searching, I got accepted into a company in the finance field.

18 months of struggling to fit in the French work culture 

All my life until this point, I always knew I was a little different. But still, I tried to fit into any new environments, just like what I did in my teenage years.

The only difference this time was that all other people around me were speaking a foreign language.

Bonjour! Ça va? Oui oui. Très bien!

I already struggled to understand my colleagues, but on top of that, I had to fit in their work culture. The 10am and 4pm Pause Café (coffee breaks) where we chat about weather and vacation, the long and dull meetings, and the endless loop of doing useless things and then start over because the management said so. 

The French are used to work in a very hierarchical structure, and I was only an apprentice. No one took my opinion seriously, and the only thing I was supposed to do was to follow the orders of my superiors. 

From the outside, it seems that I was acing at this game called life. I was studying in one of the best schools in France; I was working in a great company that is responsible for derivative products for BNP Paribas near the beautiful Champs Elysees in one of the most lively and chic 8th areas in Paris. And I even spoke fluent French.

But inside, I was collapsing.

After a few months, I started to dread going to work. I disliked all the repetitive tasks I had to do so I put on my headphones and escaped by listening to my favorite podcasts.

One day during lunch break, I was sitting on a bench in the park near the Champs Elysee and I asked myself, this isn’t it, is it?

I am capable of a lot more than this, right?!

My epiphany moment

Because the negative experience and opinion I had against this 9-5 job was so strong, I decided that it was time that I took control back in my own hands. 

No more doing repetitive tasks that didn’t spark my creativity; no more conflict with my superiors because I wanted to try new ways of doing things, and no more time wasted on building my own future.

While all my other friends in the graduate school were prepping their CVs and lettre de motivation, I decided to start researching ways I could listen to no one and just be my own boss.

At around the same time, my then boyfriend was reading a personal finance book. I casually flipped through a few pages, and I was instantly hooked. Yes, it was the book: The secrets of the millionaire minds by T Harv Eker. I read it in what felt like only a few hours. And that started my new journey of pursuing financial freedom and entrepreneurship.

But who says entrepreneurship was easy? 

Now we’re getting into the fun stuff.

It was 2017. I was 27 years old, and after a quick round of googling, I decided to try affiliate marketing. Why? I read in one of the books that it was one of the best ways to make passive income. 

I decided to start a healthy vegetarian recipe blog. But I had no training, and still didn’t know much about SEO. I thought blogging was just about writing good content, and the traffic would magically come in. People would share my blog posts, the affiliate income would start rolling in, and I would become famous. Lol

The reality?

Because of the lack of knowledge and experience, I went the wrong path. I first chose a healthy dieting product (ebook) on Clickbank that I wanted to promote as an affiliate, and then started my blog. Yes, I was motivated, but I had no strategy, no plan and no one by my side to tell me what I was doing was wrong. 

I spent hours and hours cooking dishes, taking food photography class, taking pictures, and writing recipes. I spent more money buying more and more ingredients and cooking ware. 

I also spent a lot of time trying to incorporate the affiliate links throughout the blog posts in the most natural way. (Very funny now looking back)

After my initial efforts, I put out 10 posts, and nothing happened. I decided to promote my posts on instagram and Facebook, still, traffic was close to 0. 

I put out a few more posts, but each of these posts took me so much time, because, well, I had to cook and take photos, I could only produce 1 post per week. Three months went by, and there was still nothing, not even one affiliate sale. So I decided to pivot.

I tried a few other things, including drop shipping which also flopped miserably. And then finally, one thing clicked: Kindle publishing.

This time around I decided to follow a step-by-step step guide, I took a course, and did what the teacher said. 3 months in and I was already making $400 per month, and then $700…$1100…

My revenue continued to grow when I put out more quality books that my readers love and grew my email list.

Until one day, my monthly revenue hit the $10,000 mark. 

Holy guacamole!

I was beyond ecstasy. My dream came true: I’m now my own boss and I have the freedom to work from wherever the f*ck I want.

So from 2018-2020 I became a digital nomad. 

I stayed 2 months in Chiang Mai, 4 months in Bali, 3 months in Portugal and 7 months in Berlin. 

This feeling was truly liberating. 

That sensation of waking up and checking your book income report, and found out while you sleep, you made money. All while exploring other parts of the world.

But three years went by, and another feeling of something was not right kept bugging me.

In the publishing business, I’m using a pen name, a fictional character if you want to call it that way. And for business reasons, I don’t reveal it to others.

Plus, I am producing fiction books and although I know that it is bringing people the entertainment they desperately need to relax and escape into a different world, I want another kind of impact. 

Because I personally know how amazing it feels to create a business that will prevent you from working a 9-5 until you’re 65, I want to inspire and help more people achieve it.

And I truly believe, with the right steps and vehicles, success can be replicated.

That’s where it led me to start a blog again. But different from my first time, I follow a course that is proven to get results.

If you want to keep growing with me, I will try my best and teach you everything I know with my articles and the upcoming newsletters.

I no longer want to hide behind the pen name and stay in my comfort zone. I want to be heard, and I want to be seen. I want to blossom and become who I’m meant to be.

And I hope that my story could give you some things to think about. 

Because if I can do it, so can you.