Eradicating ‘crappy PowerPoint disease’ with Tax Nuggets Academy’s Joyce Ong
Joyce Ong, founder and CEO of Tax Nuggets Academy, is on a mission to save the world from boring accounting training. Her company provides short tax videos that are both entertaining and educational.
Transitioning from a government job with the Australian Taxation Office to a social media solopreneur required a leap of faith. Less than a year later, Joyce knows she has proof of concept for her business.
Subscribers can access Tax Nuggets’ library of content through a monthly fee. Most content is video-based and includes training material produced in partnership with Joyce’s many partners, all experts in tax.
According to Joyce Ong, CEO and founder of Tax Nuggets Academy, the last seven months of her life “have been a massive roller coaster [ride].”
Seven months ago, she took a leap of faith and left her safe and lucrative position as a contractor with the Australian Taxation Office. Her new venture: saving the world from boring accounting training.
Today, Joyce partners with tax specialists to create approachable and easy-to-digest content for accounting professionals. Accountants can sign up for a monthly subscription to Tax Nuggets’ library of microlearning resources, which is primarily made up of videos that explain essential tax information in a fun and lighthearted way.
In Joyce’s words, subscribers receive technical content served up in the form of “lollipops for your brain.”
What started as a side hustle for Joyce quickly evolved into a rapidly growing business—in less than a year, she’s reached almost $100,000 in annual recurring revenue. Even more impressively, she’s done it all with just a $10,000 upfront investment.
Joyce joins Stuart McLeod, Karbon CEO and the Accounting Leaders Podcast host, to share how she went from a certified chartered accountant to entrepreneur—all during Melbourne’s hard lockdown(s).
The birth of an idea
If you’re in accounting, you’ve likely experienced a painfully dull PowerPoint presentation or two.
Like many, Joyce was intimately familiar with the dry format and (frankly) tired of having limited options to expand her knowledge base—especially options that were expensive and dry.
Tax Nuggets was her answer to what she calls “crappy Powerpoint disease.”
“It’s born out of something I wish existed throughout my entire career,” says Joyce.
Accustomed to face-to-face and highly structured training, Joyce found herself wishing for a YouTube version of professional development for accountants.
She started playing around with her idea by putting together brief videos and sharing them with her pre-existing LinkedIn network. As her videos gained traction, she created a company, and then eventually a LinkedIn account, to share her content.
Knowing that her side project could become a conflict of interest, Joyce was sure to keep her employer informed about it.
At first, the social media experiment didn’t present a problem. But eventually, her online presence grew to the point that the ATO explained that they wouldn’t be able to renew her contract if she continued posting.
Joyce found herself at a crossroads—so she quit her job and began to pursue Tax Nuggets Academy full-time.
Funding her vision
For Joyce, financial risks were an inevitable part of the transition to solopreneur. Leaving a position that came with a $200,000 salary wasn’t a decision to be made lightly.
“I’m just earning peanuts at the moment,” Joyce shares on the podcast. “I’m getting used to it. Just being a business owner has been so challenging, but so rewarding.”
Though Joyce founded Tax Nuggets with little startup capital, she’s developed a cost-effective business model that allows her to operate on a shoestring budget.
Instead of hiring professional trainers, Joyce partners with tax specialists and tax lawyers looking to get in front of accountants and build their reputation.
The collaborative approach is a win-win for all involved. Joyce saves on upfront expenses to hire on-camera talent, and her partners can build their own social media presence through the short videos.
“These content partners come to me, and we work together,” Joyce explains. “We create a piece of content, we publish it, and then their networks also spread it. They get the Benjamin Franklin effect.”
By supporting the social media growth of its partners, Tax Nuggets expands its reach through a ripple effect of an ever-growing network. Joyce also uses YouTube for promotional purposes.
As for her videos, she keeps most of the content on her site and protected by a paywall. Subscribers pay a monthly fee, much like Netflix, to access Tax Nuggets’ expanding library of video resources. Premium subscribers also receive access to live events.
“Other places are charging $200 for an hour-and-a-half webinar, and sometimes there are no humans. It’s just slides. It’s shocking,” Joyce remarks to Stuart. “In Australia, it is quite dire, the education. The CPD [continuing professional development] market is expensive and very boring.”
Recommended reading: 5 reasons your accounting firm should invest in social media marketing
What now? To expand or pivot?
Recently, Joyce has found herself grappling to answer an important question that most entrepreneurs face: What now?
“I’m at the stage where I’m thinking, ‘Do I want to just be a micro solo entrepreneur? Or do I really want to scale this up to the next level and, you know, expand in terms of other professional services, areas like management, consulting, or financial planning?’” Joyce says.
She’s also contemplating the idea of using Tax Nuggets as a way to help accountants with their own content marketing. “I’d license it to them, and then they can post it on their website, or they can create a client hub.”
Scaling is a stage of the entrepreneur’s journey that Stuart remembers. His advice?
“Wherever your heart takes you and which area you think is going to provide the most satisfaction,” says Stuart. “It depends what you want in life. Growth at all costs is not often the answer.”
He’s also quick to point out that lifestyle businesses shouldn’t be a dirty word. “They’re perfectly legitimate,” he says.
As Joyce prepares to hire her first part-time employee, she describes feeling a new pressure many business owners relate to when they become responsible for the livelihood of others.
She’s careful to remember that from the beginning, she’s pursued Tax Nuggets step by step—a strategy that has worked well for her.
I’m glad that I went really slow and really cheap to confirm to myself that there is a proof of concept and that I can run a business.
There is no formula for success
Joyce is a living, breathing example of the idea that there is no one way to do things. Certainly, the thought that one day she’d be singing on YouTube didn’t cross her mind while studying tax at Melbourne University.
That’s not to say that a college degree is no longer relevant.
“[Social media success] is not just a fluke. You can get lucky and go viral once, but to try and replicate that? Good luck with that. It takes a lot of commitment, consistency, and a real voice, which requires hard work,” Joyce says.
Joyce is deep in production tasks and strategic planning when she isn't on camera. What comes next from Tax Nuggets remains to be seen—but will undoubtedly be entertaining.