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Here are my nine streams of income and how I built them from scratch. I'm going to walk you through it step by step so that you can figure out how to do this for yourself as well. If you're new to me and my channel, my name is Morgan Debon. I'm the CEO of Blavity and Afro Tech. I have been in business for over a decade and I started my company when I was 24. A little bit more background. I come from a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri. I don't have like a trust fund. My mom was a stay at home mom, my dad was a doctor, is a doctor. We two kids now. My husband is also an entrepreneur. So that's just a little bit of context so that you can kind of understand my baseline and how you might be able to apply these tips for yourself so that you can make more money this year or next year or whenever you want. So I have my notes here. So if I'm looking at my phone, that's what I'm doing. I'm looking at my notes. All right, so let's start off with my investment journey. So I started investing in the stock market when I was 13 years old, which is how I started to kind of dabble in this concept of buying an asset and getting paid for it over time. And that was really important in terms of my foundational ability to understand money and understand that I can make more money without actually doing that much. Then I got a job at Intuit. So when I was 22, I moved to Silicon Valley and I worked at Intuit, which is an incredible tech company. And I had a great salary. I was making over $70,000 at 22. And I lived like a college student while I was still making that kind of money. I had two roommates, there's three of us. I had a couple things here that I think helped me again get to the next level in terms of my income. I had my W2 salary, I had a 401k with matching and then I had restricted stock units, RSUs, which means that I was able to invest and buy stock in the company cause it was publicly traded and then be able to actually do a look back at the price that it was three or six months ago, I believe. And so I was able to automatically get the appreciation. So already the money that I was investing, I was getting a 50 to 100% return on my 401k. And then I also was able to get stock in the stock market at a discounted rate. So I'm already winning. Okay, so W2 employee, first set of income and then my stocks and the returns from investing in the 401k and dividends. Number two income or really number three. Now income for me is my brand deals. I make a lot of money in brand deals every year. I am an expert creator in the tech and business and financial services space. And so I work with amazing brands like Lenovo, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, so many Adobe ChatGPT, so many incredible brands. Some brands, they actually just buy the license and they post the content. But it's an amazing job and I love it so much because I love talking about technology and that is my field of expertise. And so it naturally makes sense that I'm able to grow this business. Now what's important for you as you're thinking about this is what are you an expert in? You have to be an expert in something and then you want to really dominate there and then you can build multiple streams of income around it. So you'll notice that as you listen more about my other streams of income. So make sure you watch to the end. Okay? So once I had brand deals, my W2 income and then all of my investing, I also started to do speaking engagements because I was an expert. So I was one of the first black women to raise over a million dollars. I raised over $12 million in my career a long time ago, before it was in vogue and trendy, even though it's out of trend already. And I speak on things like how to grow your business, how to train your your employees and your workforce on AI, how to protect yourself in the age of AI, equity and diversity and technology, equity and access and building businesses. If you are a enterprise or a startup. I talk about so many different topics. It is a huge passion of mine and people pay me multi six figures, sometimes anywhere from 25,000 to six figures to speak and do a training or program depending on what they want. And I love that it's so fun. It is bound by time. So it's not something that I'm always able to do or say yes to, but it's something that I enjoy and it's something that I'm good at and it's something that people get a lot of value from. Because I am an expert in my field. You're going to listen and hear the thing you need to be an expert in something to have multiple streams of income. And it just depends on how you want to spend your time. If you want to be a day trader and trade stocks like the finance Bros that's fine. You're deciding to be an expert there. If you want to do real estate, you're deciding to be an expert there. If you have a skill at work and you want to do that on the side, you're deciding to be an expert there. But you have to be an expert in something. You can't be basic, okay, we talked about dividends, but I just want to double down on dividends. Not only do I have like my 401k and investing from the things that are in my retirement fund, I also have a brokerage and I also actively invest in dividend ETFs. Okay? Because it's important to me. Not only do I have APP income coming in, but I also get the appreciation of the stocks that are happening. Because when you invest in an index fund or an etf, you're diversifying naturally. You're not necessarily picking and choosing what stocks that you're going to do. And you're getting that profit sharing every quarter. You're reinvesting those profits and that allows you to grow your assets over time without having to do that much work, which is why it's a passive stream of income. Okay, the next stream of income, and I've been doing this for over seven years, is coaching and advising small businesses and enterprises. Technically these could be two, but let's just bundle it all together. So I sit on board of advisors for different companies. I've been on the board of advisors for American Airlines, meeting with the President, CEO of American Airlines, presidency of PepsiCo for many years. This is oftentimes private things. It's not something again that you're going to see on my LinkedIn. This is stuff that happens behind the scenes. Those are typically paid engagements and advising on a variety of topics. I also advise small businesses and startups. I used to do more of this. I don't have as much time to do it now, but occasionally I'll run a five or six week cohort where I will sit with someone, understand their business, understand their company and help them get to the next level. Whether that's through hiring, whether that's through scaling a revenue stream, whatever it may be. More recently, I've been spending time deeply with different companies, potentially angel investing in them and taking a piece of equity in exchange for that cash investment or my sweat equity to help them get to the next level. So that's something else you can do. My next stream of income is workshops. So as a part of my work smart community, because I don't have time as much to do Things one on one with people. Every month I pick a topic that I'm passionate about or something that I'm learning, and then I teach it publicly. And people can buy access to that. Typically, I price it incredibly low, 20, 30 bucks. Something low, but enough of a commitment that I know that they're going to show up and I know that they're going to pay attention. And that is called Worksmart. That's my work smart methodology. All of the things that you all see sit under the Worksmart umbrella, where I'm teaching people how to work smarter, not harder. And it's so fun for me. I get to meet so many different people. They can buy whatever they want. You can check out my website, you can check out my social, and you can be on my newsletter to get access to those different workshops. And they're so fun. Now, if you love everything that I do and you want a better price on stuff, you can join the Worksmart community, which is a monthly price. It's the same price as the workshops, so 29.99. The reason people do this is because you get access to more stuff. You get discounted things. I always post there. I'm like talking about things behind the scenes, sharing things like my numbers, getting behind the scenes on Blavity and Afrotech and how I build different things. So it's more content for the same price, but it is a subscription. So you do the math on how many income streams that is. Okay. Okay. I've only got two, three more substack. So I just started a substack last year. I'm super new to substack, but I'm constantly ranked in the top, like a hundred business substacks, which is amazing. It's because I have a subscription, so it's a paid substack. I have a free version and a paid version, which I love. And I'm trending already to do between 15 to 30 thousand dollars. It's kind of hard to know what the churn and retention rate is on substack, but I'm training in the right direction. And there I basically teach, but in the written form. I love writing, as you know. I have written a book called rewrite your rules, which is a national bestseller. So this is just a continuation of the frameworks and ideas and things that I have typically around money and wealth. I'm not typically around tech. And it's a really fun community and a fun place for me. I don't take it like super seriously. It's not something I spend hours and hours and hours perseverating over. But it is something that I do, you know, every few weeks I'll take the time to like write out a set of content and I enjoy that. My next set of income is my rental property. So we have a primary home that we live in and then we have a rental property. And that rental property is fantastic. We make money on that. And we just bought that last year, so this is the first year that we have that stream of income for us as a family. Rental properties. Real estate is capital intensive, so it's not something a lot of people start off with, but it is something that you can grow into as you take the cash flow from these other things, you can put it into real estate which over time becomes a great appreciating asset. And last but not least is affiliate revenue. Now this is mostly for fun and because I like getting free PR and free gifts, but I do have a shop my and I do affiliate links. I think it's probably like a hundred to 300, maybe 400amonth from affiliates, but it's still money that I would be just giving away that I gladly accept. And so anytime I make a recommendation on social or books to read literally anything, I will always make sure that that link is linked or my team will. And that just helps bring in more revenue for me and our family. And that's just like cute little go out to dinner money or buy some shoes money or whatever, right? So those are my streams of income. It's a lot. It's a lot. But a lot of it is passive. Some of it is active, you know, and some of it is like my day job, right? And if you're thinking about how to build these streams of income for yourself, you need to identify do you have time or do you have money? If you have a lot of capital, you can do things that are bigger swings, real estate, buying businesses, things like that. If you don't have a lot of capital but you have time, then you can do services and trade your time for money. And if you don't have a lot of money and you don't have a lot of time, then you kind of need to do basic things like how yield savings accounts, right? So you're not going to make a lot of money, but it doesn't really cost you much to change the order of how you're putting your money in your bank account. So let me know if what questions you have in the comments below. Make sure you like and subscribe for this video and check out my other resources that I have. I have different sessions teaching how to do this for yourself. And so make sure you check that out. I'll leave it in the description below. And I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll see you next time. Bye.
The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
Episode: Nine Streams of Income: Building Wealth from Scratch
Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Morgan DeBaun
In this empowering and practical episode, Morgan DeBaun, CEO of Blavity Inc. and AfroTech, breaks down her personal journey of building nine diverse income streams from scratch. Speaking candidly, Morgan shares actionable insights, strategies, and real-world examples aimed at helping listeners identify opportunities to grow their own wealth. The conversation is both inspiring and tactical, demystifying various forms of active and passive income, and emphasizing the importance of becoming an expert in one’s field.
Background: Morgan provides personal context, coming from a middle-class family in St. Louis, Missouri, with no trust fund or significant inheritance.
Early Investing: Began investing at 13, learning the value of buying assets that appreciate and generate passive income.
“I started investing in the stock market when I was 13 years old...that was really important in terms of my foundational ability to understand money.” (01:30)
Frugality: Lived modestly in Silicon Valley—even with a $70,000 salary at age 22—while maximizing benefits and investing opportunities.
“I was making over $70,000 at 22...I had a 401k with matching…and restricted stock units…so I was able to automatically get the appreciation.” (04:20)
“I was getting a 50 to 100% return on my 401k...Not only do I have my 401k and investing…, I also actively invest in dividend ETFs.” (09:00)
Expert-Led Content Creation: Partners with major tech and business brands (Lenovo, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.) through content and licensing deals.
“I make a lot of money in brand deals every year...I am an expert creator in the tech and business and financial services space.” (06:20)
Advice: Identify your own unique area of expertise and build income streams around it.
“People pay me multi six figures...to speak and do a training or program…It is bound by time, so it’s not something I’m always able to do…” (08:45)
“I sit on board of advisors for different companies…This is stuff that happens behind the scenes, those are typically paid engagements.” (10:45)
“Every month I pick a topic that I’m passionate about or something that I’m learning, and then I teach it publicly…typically $20, 30 bucks.” (12:30)
“You get access to more stuff…It’s more content for the same price, but it is a subscription.” (14:10)
“I just started a Substack last year, I’m super new to Substack, but I’m constantly ranked in the top, like, hundred business Substacks…” (15:20)
“We have a primary home…then we have a rental property…we make money on that and we just bought that last year.” (16:30)
“This is mostly for fun and because I like getting free PR and free gifts…But it’s still money that I would be just giving away that I gladly accept.” (17:25)
Be an Expert:
"You have to be an expert in something and then you want to really dominate there…" (07:00)
Active vs. Passive:
Outlines which streams are active (require time/expertise) and which are passive (investments, rental income).
Time or Money:
“If you have a lot of capital, you can do things that are bigger swings…If you don’t have a lot of capital but you have time, then you can do services and trade your time for money.” (18:40)
Start Where You Are:
Encourages listeners to honestly evaluate their own resources and choose matching strategies, even if it’s just maximizing savings yields to begin with.
| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------|------------| | Early Investment Mindset | 01:30 | | W2 Salary & Corporate Investing | 03:15-05:00| | Brand Deals & Expertise | 06:05 | | Speaking Engagements | 08:15 | | Dividend Income/Investing | 09:00 | | Coaching and Advising | 10:15 | | Workshops (WorkSmart Program) | 12:10 | | WorkSmart Community Subscription | 13:30 | | Substack Revenue | 15:10 | | Rental Property Income | 16:25 | | Affiliate Revenue | 17:20 | | Building Wealth Advice | 18:40 |
Morgan DeBaun’s episode is an actionable blueprint for both seasoned professionals and beginners looking to diversify their income. Key takeaways include the importance of expertise, the balance of time and money, and starting with incremental changes. Her transparency on numbers and strategies is refreshing, and her enthusiastic tone makes listeners feel empowered to forge their own financial journey.
For more resources and updates, visit Morgan’s website, social channels, or explore the WorkSmart community.