All you need it a couple of whales to vote for you and you are more than set. 30 days. If you're as fortunate as some of the makeup tutorial people, and virtual tour guides you could potentially make enough to survive for more than a year in 30 days. :) The challenge is of course attracting votes from those that you'd need to yet the votes from.
I still think you can do it without the whales, but it will take quite a bit of work initially. If your steem power is high enough that seems to make it a lot easier.
No matter the case, hopefully I can convince a few regular people to sign up, (If not loads haha.) The enthusiasm helps just as well as upvotes :P