Great post. I've thought about these things as well. If you really enjoy what you're doing, perhaps you can focus on lead gen, systematize the entire thing, and turn it into a "real" business. A site like Home Advisor (used to be Service Magic) is really "just" a lead gen middleman and they do over $250MM/year.
Personally, I can only work on one big project at a time. I would never be comfortable operating multiple "big" sites at the same time. My brain would be on constant overdrive and I'd never be able to sleep! Same for operating in multiple completely separate niches at the same time. Doesn't work for me.
There is nothing "small" about affiliate marketing as long as you stick to the huge, evergreen niches that are primarily health, wealth, financial and relationships. I know people who are "just" affiliates that make millions a year in each of these niches. There's nothing small about that.
My other suggestion is to consider what is normally the next step for people like you, which is to simply create your own product in whatever niche you're currently successful at as an affiliate. Flip the script and let other people promote your stuff.
The idea of building a sellable asset is quite romantic. For me personally I've found it easier said than done. A lot of it has to do with me, my lifestyle choices, and my personality.
For example, there's almost nothing that would get me to open a "real" office, hire a bunch of people, have to drive to work every day, etc. I wouldn't do this even if it meant a guaranteed $100MM sale in 10 years. It's just not me.
Don't underestimate what you can do as an affiliate at home in your underwear. If you do it right there can be some "fastlane" components to it, and unless you dream of building a big biz and being a CEO it might be all you need.
I have no desire to do that, and I have no desire to be so wealthy that I own 3 houses, a private plane, a yacht, and all that other crap, so even if all I ever did was make a nice high-6 to 7 figure income online as an affiliate for the rest of my life I'd be just fine.
With that being said, I'm still looking for something new and exciting as well, because unlike you, I'm not even sure I really enjoy this "stuff" any more.
Hey limitup, thanks for doing this. Really awesome advice all over this thread.
I've been thinking about a good question for a few days now, as I don't want to be one of those guys asking you why you don't start building a list again.
I'm facing a problem I think you're pretty familiar with aswell. Have been doing AM for some time, mainly PPC. I love testing, tracking, optimizing and tweaking my landers, autoresponders etc. Can't really say why, but I guess I find it fascinating to see the impact directly. Pretty cool to see the evolution of one specific project over time. Also I can hack together a basic lander pretty quickly with lots of googling, reusing old code, Photoshop etc, but far from being considered a LAMP developer like yourself. My current venture is maxing out at 700-800 euros /day which is cool, but not great money.
The problem I'm facing and I realized this while reading this thread is that I want to work on something bigger. I'm not really building an asset I could sell later on, but created a high paying job for myself. Of course my "payment" is lower than yours, but I think the principle still applies.
I could continue with what I'm doing, add other niches, scale up and all that jazz, but that ultimately only delays the problem. Though I will do that for now, as long as I don't know any better, for the sake of money. The way I feel is that everything I'm looking at, business-wise, is either too small (e.g. content-driven Adsense sites) or too big (e.g. 100 MM/yr revenue companies). I feel like I'm blinded by routine due to the years in the industry.
Money is still a huge part of my motivation, because I have yet to achieve your level of financial success. I just feel that moving forward I should be more cautious about how I apply my motivation and focus to eventually build something way bigger.
What are your thoughts on breaking through this barrier? How can I see outside the box that is affiliate marketing?