Building a video games business from scratch

[srodrigo]

Sorry in advance for the upcoming wall of text and the conclusion.

I was going to post an update to tell about this week's improvement, as I managed to put some work on the mobile app every day for the first time in a month. But I've changed the topic, as in reality it was just a burst and today I'm pretty scared about the whole thing below. I need to stop and fix this before it gets much worse. I've decided to put this on halt, for now.

The app I was making was meaningful to me at the beginning. I made it a nice-looking app as well (spent some time designing it) and it was something I wanted to use. Then I did some research and found similar apps, so there are people who might be interested in it. All of this made sense. But now I don't give a sh*t about the app, I've lost any interest.

I think I've been pushing myself a lot for too long. Feeling guilty for not spending time working is harmful and pointless, because you don't make progress anyway, but it's something that needs to be corrected. Also, before this "entrepreneurship urgency" after reading TMF (although I somehow had it since before as well), I spent a few years improving my coding skills pretty much every evening, weekend and holiday. Also worked on some side projects. I loved it, and it bordered the obsession, but I'm not going to deny that I suppressed and sacrificed many things too, and now it's hunting me. The last 5-6 years have been very demanding in both my career and setting the foundations of entrepreneurship. Now, the urgency of having to be "productive" all the time is killing me. I can't push anymore. For now, because I know this is temporary and I'll eventually come back to work my a$$ off and earn my long-term freedom. But now I need to step back, lick wounds, heal properly, and then come back. Live today, fight tomorrow.

Also, there's something else I mentioned on another thread. The fact that I might not escape from work/consulting in the next 4 years, as if building a business were going to take ages (it might, or it might not), makes me feel that this is not worth carrying on. For some reason, I feel like life ends at 40. I know this is stupid, but I can see a big deadline there, as if everything were going to go downhill after that, and everything feels like needs to be rushed to make the most of it before that deadline is reached. Mid-life crisis I suspect.

So I give up for now. I need to work on my mindset on a few areas instead of torturing myself and not making much progress and feeling like sacrificing other things is for nothing. I also need to stay away from this wonderful, life-changing forum. Every time I open the front page and read about how others are pushing themselves, I feel guilty and this just keeps building up. I will turn notifications off as well and try not to open the forum, as I really want to break this toxic loop. Nothing to blame any of you for, it's just me not channelling your wisdom correctly.

Not everything was negative this week though. I validated that I'm on the right kind of field to build a business. Given my personality type - that rare INFJ-T, very close to INTJ-T, which I retested again this weekend, now I'm very sure that mobile apps/games (or even non-mobile games, given the time and accepting that they don't bring recurring income) are the thing that fits best, and also aligns with my overall goals. INFJ-T's are suited for business and arts, and INTJ-T are the typical "programmer" type. So games and apps make sense.

I also found that the way I work might be back-firing. I use Pomodoro's and I make great progress in a short amount of time, but end up pretty stressed/anxious. Also, obsessively tracking my time adds somehow even more stress. I've clocked around 140 hours on the app since I started, including learning a new tech stack, designing the app, making a landing page I trashed, and making the app itself that has 7 main screens (most of them similar though) so far. That's great efficiency. But that laser-focus also creates more stress than needed I believe. Tracking time is extremely useful, but I'm thinking that next time I might not track anything and just work here and there, or for longer periods, depending on the time and energy available. This should also partially fix the "all or none" problem I have, like having 10-15 free minutes but thinking "ahg, but that doesn't fit into a whole Pomodoro, it's not going to be productive, let's procrastinate then". I'll need to fix that problem in a larger scope too and stop demanding myself to spend a minimum amount of time per day/week, because I get demotivated if life gets in the way and I can't achieve that day/week goal, which ends up meaning I do nothing. I'm carrying this problem since long ago and needs fixing because it harms productivity. 10 minutes is always better than 0.

I'll try to find "wasting time" something to enjoy again. I can't remember last time I had even a brief period of time like this since a decade ago. This is not healthy. It doesn't have to be time dangerous time black holes such as playing video games or watching Netflix all the time, but maybe things like:

• working on a pet project for as long as I feel interested in it
• learning a new skill
• joining that game jam without feeling the game I make is not monetisable, therefore not worth the time and not doing it
• looking at that squirrel in the garden outside

Anything that brings excitement back. Who knows if doing these "unproductive things" will lead to some product or business ideas in the future.

I'm going to try to look into meditation again. Paradoxically, I didn't "have time" for this so I could put as much time into work as possible, and now I'm breaking down. It's taking its sweet revenge.

I'm reading the book Bella recommended, although I'm not doing the exercises yet. I already do some sort of Morning Pages since a few years ago, although only when I need a brain-dump, but I see it's a valuable tool. I might follow the book along later, but for now I'd prefer to focus on meditation while keeping the health focused stuff going. One thing at a time.

Quitting temporarily feels like taking a big weight off shoulders.

 

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[srodrigo]

It's been almost 2.5 years

The original idea (game development) is binned. I still love video games and game development is challenging, but not rewarding anymore. I don't want to bore anyone with the reasons, but it just neither aligns with my definition of meaningful work, nor resonates with my todays self. Ironically, I opened the Unity Ads console last night, and saw that my puzzles mobile game made $2.50 in ads over 3 years haha. I thought it was dead, but it got a few hundreds of installs since last month, for no reason (I didn't touch it at all). I'll see if I make some update, but probably not, as I want to move on from this. It still feels cool to get my first $2.50 completely made by myself (I made a few hundreds years ago with a mobile app, but with some other guy).

The app I mentioned on my last post ended up in the landfill too. I spent weeks designing and coding, and looked cool, but then I was like 'why would someone use this at all'. I still think it's pointless to put more work on it, it doesn't have real value.

I took some long breaks from side projects since las post. I worked on a few mobile app prototypes though:

A cooking app that has something innovative and useful. I showed it to a few people and they loved it. The issue I see with cooking apps is content, you need quality recipes. I was about to pitch it to a gamer guy "internet friend" who was a chef until not long ago, but ended up not taking action. He was busy with a bunch of big projects, so not sure he'd be keen anyway.

A productivity app that uses a method to track energy/motivation/focus levels. I designed it, started coding it, and then think 'why would someone spend a dime on this'. I didn't ask for much feedback about this one, but showed the idea to my future apps partner (see below) and thought 'meh'.

I'm working on a business cards scanner app prototype at the moment. I'm trying to commit for real this time, as I've got a partner on board. I want to finish an MVP that we can show to real users and see what they think. We've got a few ideas and started with this one, which has a few competitors out there, one making around $30k/month (according to SensorTower), so there is validation even if we don't go around showing the MVP to people. The app of these folks looks like an app from 2010 and doesn't even work properly (my partner tried and failed finding a good one, which is why we started ours), so I think we can do a better job. I'm enjoying myself as the OCR technology is challenging and within my areas of interest, but I'm afraid I thought this would be something quicker to build as a first app (which might fail as we are quite new to the apps business). The scan functionality is not trivial to get close to perfect (let's say, to the level of Adobe Scan, which has a team dedicated to OCR I believe, and works quite well as far as I've seen). The good thing is that we can fine-tune it for cards, which simplifies it a bit. I have to rely on some ORC and ML libraries at least for now, so I need to see how much I can squeeze.

I'm still working as a software developer contractor, around 40h/week, so I don't have that much time to work on my stuff. Cutting on distractions and all that to make some extra time in the evenings and mornings. Let's see how it goes.

 

[Fastlane Liam]

What's next for srodrigo? Sounds like you're somewhat enjoying working as a developer. I remember reading your post when you first posted it

 

[srodrigo]

What's next for srodrigo? Sounds like you're somewhat enjoying working as a developer. I remember reading your post when you first posted it

Good question. To summarise:

• I still like coding and the challenges it puts in front of me. There's also something magical about creating things out of thin air, with just a computer and your brain.
• I don't like working with idiots though, and there are a lot out there. Specially when they think they are good at what they do but use the same bad practices 90%+ use. Exhausting and tiring.
• While I like coding and building things, I don't find as much enjoyment in learning as I used to. I don't push my technical skills to the limit with books, hard exercises or crazy experiments anymore. I only push them if the project at hand requires me to. Most programming languages and frameworks look pretty much the same anyway, so what's the point in accumulating more marginal knowledge. Even some esoteric tech stacks I wanted to dive into don't look that appealing anymore, I'd rather play video games.
• I've accomplished what I wanted as an employee. I worked for some great companies with great people. I switched areas of programming a couple of times to get out of my comfort zone, sometimes a bit brutally. But there's nothing else that catches my attention. Applying at Google? Meh, maybe 10 years ago, now I'd rather get a fully-remote job that pays the bills and allows me travelling. Also, something about being an employee doesn't feel right. You are a number, and a wage slave, and don't have the choice not to work. You don't have much freedom.
• That's why I became a contractor. Here (UK) it's similar to being an employee, but you've got more flexibility and can work for different clients. This was the last step on my roadmap, the last thing I left undone and wanted to cross out. And this is why I felt quite lost for the last two years, there was no 'next thing', and I didn't particularly enjoy the 'process' either (most clients are a pain in the butt). So now I just leverage the money I make to save up for a house, or fund projects or my lifestyle (mainly travelling).
• The only possible next step from here is building an actual business, specially a digital product. Employee -> Contractor -> Business owner. This is the logical evolution to grow in a couple of areas. This is what some other people in the same situation did and most don't regret. Also fully Fastlane compliant.

If I were financially independent, I think I would still build software of some kind. There are many problems to solve out there, and the process of building a software solution out of nowhere is the closest to being a wizard that you can be in 2022. I've felt burned out and complained recently, but I think it was more about misalignment than about software development itself. I'd probably spend way less time on it though, it's no longer my 10x activity (as @Andy Black would say ) I'd rather play the piano and compose music at least 50% of my time.

 

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[srodrigo]

It's been a year since last update. I thought I'd drop a line.

TL;DR: I've got nothing to show that would take me towards my goals

Lots of things happened on the personal side, but I'll spare you from that.

Good news

My contracting business went as well as the previous years. Now I'm taking a few months completely off as I've got some personal things going on that need focus, and I would need to take too much time off to start a new contract without pissing the client off. I'll go back onto the market by mid-March. But last year (Jan 2022-Dec-2022) was cool, a bit over £100k in profit. Not bad for a solo trader, and way more money than I need. The "problem" is that my income depends 100% on my time and it's me doing the work, which I haven't enjoyed much on this project. At least I managed to love coding again (ironically after the end of the contract), so I don't mind doing the work. But dealing with certain kinds of people...that drains me.

Bad news

The above is not working towards building a scalable business (being it video games or something else, doesn't matter). I've built a few prototypes but they died before going to market for different reasons. I keep switching interests too quickly and can't really stick to something for more than 6 months (and 6 months is already a struggle).

I've thought about scaling, converting this business into a software agency. I've worked at enough of them to know this is not something I'd be happy with. Digital products scale better and are more interesting. I'm thinking of a productised product (courses, training, etc.), maybe this is a better option.

I have some new areas to explore that can suit my lone wolf approach without requiring a team that I'd probably mismanage (I really suck at that). Mainly: code boilerplates, blogs, and music.

Code boilterplates

I'm not sure about whether ChatGPT will make this obsolete, but I've seen one-man bands building a business around this. I'm actually good at creating boilerplates (have built a few before, both for employers and for myself), and looks like a business that's manageable for me and plays my strengths. Clients would require changes, fixes and new features, but looks very manageable as I would be playing my main strength: writing high quality code. I had a look at the market and I still need to find a niche that's not fully served. There are quite a few players, but there might be room for improvement, and I see a few of them focusing on out of fashion technologies. I'll see if I look into this properly this week at some point, looks like a good fit.

Blogs

I like writing (and I want to think that I'm decent at it) and there's still money to be made with blogs. Now the questions are:

• Do I have the focus to not get distracted after a few blog posts? - I fear that I'd have the same issue as usual, getting distracted and not being able to commit to 1-2 posts per week, having big gaps.
• What niche can I write about that can be profitable? - My main skills resolve around programming, music, and a few random interests I'm not quite qualified to talk about (mainly MBTI, which I considered getting certified in, but I'm still not a psychologist).
  • Programming articles take a long time to write properly. I'd need to study what other people are doing, but I have the feeling that this is a tough road, and my personal blog sucked in terms of views despite having some good programming articles. Keeping a good pace is difficult compared to, say, talking about personal improvement and other non-technical topics.
  • Music: since I'm into this, I toyed with the idea of writing articles about equipment or software. Equipment is hard to pull unless you are rich and can buy all the stuff yourself, or already have a large audience and can get it for free for a review. Software is more doable, but still not cheap to invest hundreds on some plugin just to review it...along with another 9, probably as expensive, plugins.

Music

I bought a couple of digital pianos and got back into playing. And also into composing. I got a few original compositions that need a bit of polish, but are ready to be recorded and published (sheetmusic included).

I also did one piano arrangement of a popular anime song. The quality of the sheemusic leaves the big players in the dust (this is not pointless bragging, I checked what they are selling). The downside is that it took me one month to get this done, lol. I'm either very slow or I'm aiming for something too perfect. The big YouTubers ship 1-2 videos a week, which is a crazy pace I can't keep up with even if I were full-time into this.

Wondering if I can create a piano course. Many people love to play anime music, so maybe a course that teaches how to play in this style, skipping the classical music foundations. As a piano teacher, I wouldn't do this, but maybe it's a good business idea as long as people aren't too concerned about a suboptimal technique. This project would take quite a while probably, as I'd need to make many arrangements. It would probably have some downsides like copyright...

For some reason, I feel like this avenue is less likely to work out at scale than focusing on software development businesses...

Other things

I've also tried getting into Shopify apps, as it's not an extremely saturated market yet. I got a bit put off though since it's a big doggy: people try to get reviews at all costs so their apps climb the ranks. This means shipping shit, offering great customer support, and getting a 4-5 stars review after fixing the mess. Well...

After reading some apps founders, the customer support part looks like it's a larger slice than you'd have on a normal SaaS, for some reason. I'm cool with offering customer support (and I think I'd do great) and understand it's extremely important, but for some reason e-shop owners tend to be a bigger pain in the a$$ than other kinds of customer. I've put this in the backburner for now as my personal endeavours were sucking my attention too much to build and release a Shopify app and being unable to put the attention that surely would be needed if I got people to use it. Maybe I'll get back into it.

I started writing a couple of books that didn't go anywhere either. One was a fiction book (only managed to write 1-2 chapters before thinking, what's the point?). The other one was about MBTI and software development (but it felt like giving medical advice without being a doctor, lol).

I've been toying with the idea of making another, bigger video game. Something in the lines of Caves of Qud. Dwarf Fortress has recently made F*ck you money on Steam. The problem is that this kind of games take AGES to make. The latter has been around for 20 years and developers living off donations. There are also a ton of enthusiasts who make games for free (this might be an advantage though, bigger market?). So not quite an appealing business.

At least I figured out what I want if I ever manage to have enough money to not have to work again (not a simple question to answer). I want to write software, possibly open-source (to give back to other people), or roguelike video games, which are quite a challenge in many ways and would make me grow. I also want to split my time between this and making music. This would be my ideal "work" day if I didn't need to work for money.

To summarise

I'm still struggling with focus, and the things I manage to complete are too small or unrelated to building a viable business. I've been re-reading this incredible thread HOT! - MINDSET - Are you an ENTP and wonder why you can't get things done when working for yourself? - While I'm an INFP, my Ne causes most of the issues highlighted by the OP and drives me nuts. I've tried applying the explore and exploit approach with good success. The problem is that all these small pieces of work on different topics aren't really useful to build a business (unless I'm overlooking something).

 

[srodrigo]

I forgot to mention that I tried to get soft-proof for a technical book I was thinking about writing on a topic I got expertise and I see people struggling with at every single client I work with. I created a poll on Linkedin with a lot of tags, and I got 8 people replying. 6 would be interested, 2 wouldn't be. Very few people, and most of the "I'm interested" ones are friends, lol. So I think this is a bad idea (unless I can use it for personal branding, but still 1 year of work probably for not that much money).

 

[Subsonic]

It's been a year since last update. I thought I'd drop a line.

TL;DR: I've got nothing to show that would take me towards my goals

Lots of things happened on the personal side, but I'll spare you from that.

Good news

My contracting business went as well as the previous years. Now I'm taking a few months completely off as I've got some personal things going on that need focus, and I would need to take too much time off to start a new contract without pissing the client off. I'll go back onto the market by mid-March. But last year (Jan 2022-Dec-2022) was cool, a bit over £100k in profit. Not bad for a solo trader, and way more money than I need. The "problem" is that my income depends 100% on my time and it's me doing the work, which I haven't enjoyed much on this project. At least I managed to love coding again (ironically after the end of the contract), so I don't mind doing the work. But dealing with certain kinds of people...that drains me.

Bad news

The above is not working towards building a scalable business (being it video games or something else, doesn't matter). I've built a few prototypes but they died before going to market for different reasons. I keep switching interests too quickly and can't really stick to something for more than 6 months (and 6 months is already a struggle).

I've thought about scaling, converting this business into a software agency. I've worked at enough of them to know this is not something I'd be happy with. Digital products scale better and are more interesting. I'm thinking of a productised product (courses, training, etc.), maybe this is a better option.

I have some new areas to explore that can suit my lone wolf approach without requiring a team that I'd probably mismanage (I really suck at that). Mainly: code boilerplates, blogs, and music.

Code boilterplates

I'm not sure about whether ChatGPT will make this obsolete, but I've seen one-man bands building a business around this. I'm actually good at creating boilerplates (have built a few before, both for employers and for myself), and looks like a business that's manageable for me and plays my strengths. Clients would require changes, fixes and new features, but looks very manageable as I would be playing my main strength: writing high quality code. I had a look at the market and I still need to find a niche that's not fully served. There are quite a few players, but there might be room for improvement, and I see a few of them focusing on out of fashion technologies. I'll see if I look into this properly this week at some point, looks like a good fit.

Blogs

I like writing (and I want to think that I'm decent at it) and there's still money to be made with blogs. Now the questions are:

• Do I have the focus to not get distracted after a few blog posts? - I fear that I'd have the same issue as usual, getting distracted and not being able to commit to 1-2 posts per week, having big gaps.
• What niche can I write about that can be profitable? - My main skills resolve around programming, music, and a few random interests I'm not quite qualified to talk about (mainly MBTI, which I considered getting certified in, but I'm still not a psychologist).
  • Programming articles take a long time to write properly. I'd need to study what other people are doing, but I have the feeling that this is a tough road, and my personal blog sucked in terms of views despite having some good programming articles. Keeping a good pace is difficult compared to, say, talking about personal improvement and other non-technical topics.
  • Music: since I'm into this, I toyed with the idea of writing articles about equipment or software. Equipment is hard to pull unless you are rich and can buy all the stuff yourself, or already have a large audience and can get it for free for a review. Software is more doable, but still not cheap to invest hundreds on some plugin just to review it...along with another 9, probably as expensive, plugins.

Music

I bought a couple of digital pianos and got back into playing. And also into composing. I got a few original compositions that need a bit of polish, but are ready to be recorded and published (sheetmusic included).

I also did one piano arrangement of a popular anime song. The quality of the sheemusic leaves the big players in the dust (this is not pointless bragging, I checked what they are selling). The downside is that it took me one month to get this done, lol. I'm either very slow or I'm aiming for something too perfect. The big YouTubers ship 1-2 videos a week, which is a crazy pace I can't keep up with even if I were full-time into this.

Wondering if I can create a piano course. Many people love to play anime music, so maybe a course that teaches how to play in this style, skipping the classical music foundations. As a piano teacher, I wouldn't do this, but maybe it's a good business idea as long as people aren't too concerned about a suboptimal technique. This project would take quite a while probably, as I'd need to make many arrangements. It would probably have some downsides like copyright...

For some reason, I feel like this avenue is less likely to work out at scale than focusing on software development businesses...

Other things

I've also tried getting into Shopify apps, as it's not an extremely saturated market yet. I got a bit put off though since it's a big doggy: people try to get reviews at all costs so their apps climb the ranks. This means shipping shit, offering great customer support, and getting a 4-5 stars review after fixing the mess. Well...

After reading some apps founders, the customer support part looks like it's a larger slice than you'd have on a normal SaaS, for some reason. I'm cool with offering customer support (and I think I'd do great) and understand it's extremely important, but for some reason e-shop owners tend to be a bigger pain in the a$$ than other kinds of customer. I've put this in the backburner for now as my personal endeavours were sucking my attention too much to build and release a Shopify app and being unable to put the attention that surely would be needed if I got people to use it. Maybe I'll get back into it.

I started writing a couple of books that didn't go anywhere either. One was a fiction book (only managed to write 1-2 chapters before thinking, what's the point?). The other one was about MBTI and software development (but it felt like giving medical advice without being a doctor, lol).

I've been toying with the idea of making another, bigger video game. Something in the lines of Caves of Qud. Dwarf Fortress has recently made F*ck you money on Steam. The problem is that this kind of games take AGES to make. The latter has been around for 20 years and developers living off donations. There are also a ton of enthusiasts who make games for free (this might be an advantage though, bigger market?). So not quite an appealing business.

At least I figured out what I want if I ever manage to have enough money to not have to work again (not a simple question to answer). I want to write software, possibly open-source (to give back to other people), or roguelike video games, which are quite a challenge in many ways and would make me grow. I also want to split my time between this and making music. This would be my ideal "work" day if I didn't need to work for money.

To summarise

I'm still struggling with focus, and the things I manage to complete are too small or unrelated to building a viable business. I've been re-reading this incredible thread HOT! - MINDSET - Are you an ENTP and wonder why you can't get things done when working for yourself? - While I'm an INFP, my Ne causes most of the issues highlighted by the OP and drives me nuts. I've tried applying the explore and exploit approach with good success. The problem is that all these small pieces of work on different topics aren't really useful to build a business (unless I'm overlooking something).

To me it seems like your thinking more about building than about helping with all the idea you have.
Your also confining yourself to just online businesses. While yes, you have skill that can help you there, so have millions of other people.

In my experience it has been way easier to make money irl than online (but its more uncomfortable).


The actionable advice would be to stop thinking about what you want to do and start thinking about what other people want.
Moreover don't limit yourself to online businesses.
Your skills can still be useful but don't make them limit you.

Here are 3 examples for problems you could solve (that i just thought of):

1. Music production software is always so complicated to use.
2. Physical Labor businesses struggle to find good workers.
3. All cheap plastic bags/bubble wraps/
... are polluting nature but there are no good alternatives for stores to use.

 

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[srodrigo]

To me it seems like your thinking more about building than about helping with all the idea you have.

That's a fair point. I'd say there's truth in that. Although I really try to make sure what I think of building will help someone. This is not always the case (for example on video games), but it is when I try to build a better version of an existing product (people use it, so there's a need). The code boilerplate stuff, similar thing, I'm trying to find out if people need that or if I'm just trying to push what I think they need. I'm a maker though, so sometimes this tricks me and I jump into making too soon, which is not a good thing business-wise usually.

Your also confining yourself to just online businesses. While yes, you have skill that can help you there, so have millions of other people.

In my experience it has been way easier to make money irl than online (but its more uncomfortable).

Fair points too. I 100% agree that not all money is made only. I don't want to dive into this though, as selfish as it sounds. Not only I won't be using my strengths (which puts me in a disadvantage, as if it wasn't difficult enough already), but I've been quite a digital nomad for a while, and I need to keep this "perk". I can't get into a business that tights me geographically, that was #1 constraint when I started. Therefore, at least a good amount of physical businesses are out.

The actionable advice would be to stop thinking about what you want to do and start thinking about what other people want.
Moreover don't limit yourself to online businesses.
Your skills can still be useful but don't make them limit you.

Here are 3 examples for problems you could solve (that i just thought of):

1. Music production software is always so complicated to use.
2. Physical Labor businesses struggle to find good workers.
3. All cheap plastic bags/bubble wraps/
... are polluting nature but there are no good alternatives for stores to use.

I've done my best to validate ideas so far, but there's room for improvement. That way I can solve the what other people want part, which I agree it's the way to go.

I considered diving into 1. There are small companies that have been doing well. For example, Valhalla DSP, they make amazing reverb plugins, and it was started by a programmer. But he had lots of experience in that domain as an employee. Not the craziest entry barrier, but still not low. I think plugins are the most realistic chance I'd have there (unless I can raise millions for a new DAW to compete with the big boys, ha). This is a very saturated space though. Looking for an easier UX is a good approach, some stuff out there is... very convoluted.

Thanks for your insights!

 

[Hai]

It's been a year since last update. I thought I'd drop a line.

TL;DR: I've got nothing to show that would take me towards my goals

Lots of things happened on the personal side, but I'll spare you from that.

Good news

My contracting business went as well as the previous years. Now I'm taking a few months completely off as I've got some personal things going on that need focus, and I would need to take too much time off to start a new contract without pissing the client off. I'll go back onto the market by mid-March. But last year (Jan 2022-Dec-2022) was cool, a bit over £100k in profit. Not bad for a solo trader, and way more money than I need. The "problem" is that my income depends 100% on my time and it's me doing the work, which I haven't enjoyed much on this project. At least I managed to love coding again (ironically after the end of the contract), so I don't mind doing the work. But dealing with certain kinds of people...that drains me.

Bad news

The above is not working towards building a scalable business (being it video games or something else, doesn't matter). I've built a few prototypes but they died before going to market for different reasons. I keep switching interests too quickly and can't really stick to something for more than 6 months (and 6 months is already a struggle).

I've thought about scaling, converting this business into a software agency. I've worked at enough of them to know this is not something I'd be happy with. Digital products scale better and are more interesting. I'm thinking of a productised product (courses, training, etc.), maybe this is a better option.

I have some new areas to explore that can suit my lone wolf approach without requiring a team that I'd probably mismanage (I really suck at that). Mainly: code boilerplates, blogs, and music.

Code boilterplates

I'm not sure about whether ChatGPT will make this obsolete, but I've seen one-man bands building a business around this. I'm actually good at creating boilerplates (have built a few before, both for employers and for myself), and looks like a business that's manageable for me and plays my strengths. Clients would require changes, fixes and new features, but looks very manageable as I would be playing my main strength: writing high quality code. I had a look at the market and I still need to find a niche that's not fully served. There are quite a few players, but there might be room for improvement, and I see a few of them focusing on out of fashion technologies. I'll see if I look into this properly this week at some point, looks like a good fit.

Blogs

I like writing (and I want to think that I'm decent at it) and there's still money to be made with blogs. Now the questions are:

• Do I have the focus to not get distracted after a few blog posts? - I fear that I'd have the same issue as usual, getting distracted and not being able to commit to 1-2 posts per week, having big gaps.
• What niche can I write about that can be profitable? - My main skills resolve around programming, music, and a few random interests I'm not quite qualified to talk about (mainly MBTI, which I considered getting certified in, but I'm still not a psychologist).
  • Programming articles take a long time to write properly. I'd need to study what other people are doing, but I have the feeling that this is a tough road, and my personal blog sucked in terms of views despite having some good programming articles. Keeping a good pace is difficult compared to, say, talking about personal improvement and other non-technical topics.
  • Music: since I'm into this, I toyed with the idea of writing articles about equipment or software. Equipment is hard to pull unless you are rich and can buy all the stuff yourself, or already have a large audience and can get it for free for a review. Software is more doable, but still not cheap to invest hundreds on some plugin just to review it...along with another 9, probably as expensive, plugins.

Music

I bought a couple of digital pianos and got back into playing. And also into composing. I got a few original compositions that need a bit of polish, but are ready to be recorded and published (sheetmusic included).

I also did one piano arrangement of a popular anime song. The quality of the sheemusic leaves the big players in the dust (this is not pointless bragging, I checked what they are selling). The downside is that it took me one month to get this done, lol. I'm either very slow or I'm aiming for something too perfect. The big YouTubers ship 1-2 videos a week, which is a crazy pace I can't keep up with even if I were full-time into this.

Wondering if I can create a piano course. Many people love to play anime music, so maybe a course that teaches how to play in this style, skipping the classical music foundations. As a piano teacher, I wouldn't do this, but maybe it's a good business idea as long as people aren't too concerned about a suboptimal technique. This project would take quite a while probably, as I'd need to make many arrangements. It would probably have some downsides like copyright...

For some reason, I feel like this avenue is less likely to work out at scale than focusing on software development businesses...

Other things

I've also tried getting into Shopify apps, as it's not an extremely saturated market yet. I got a bit put off though since it's a big doggy: people try to get reviews at all costs so their apps climb the ranks. This means shipping shit, offering great customer support, and getting a 4-5 stars review after fixing the mess. Well...

After reading some apps founders, the customer support part looks like it's a larger slice than you'd have on a normal SaaS, for some reason. I'm cool with offering customer support (and I think I'd do great) and understand it's extremely important, but for some reason e-shop owners tend to be a bigger pain in the a$$ than other kinds of customer. I've put this in the backburner for now as my personal endeavours were sucking my attention too much to build and release a Shopify app and being unable to put the attention that surely would be needed if I got people to use it. Maybe I'll get back into it.

I started writing a couple of books that didn't go anywhere either. One was a fiction book (only managed to write 1-2 chapters before thinking, what's the point?). The other one was about MBTI and software development (but it felt like giving medical advice without being a doctor, lol).

I've been toying with the idea of making another, bigger video game. Something in the lines of Caves of Qud. Dwarf Fortress has recently made F*ck you money on Steam. The problem is that this kind of games take AGES to make. The latter has been around for 20 years and developers living off donations. There are also a ton of enthusiasts who make games for free (this might be an advantage though, bigger market?). So not quite an appealing business.

At least I figured out what I want if I ever manage to have enough money to not have to work again (not a simple question to answer). I want to write software, possibly open-source (to give back to other people), or roguelike video games, which are quite a challenge in many ways and would make me grow. I also want to split my time between this and making music. This would be my ideal "work" day if I didn't need to work for money.

To summarise

I'm still struggling with focus, and the things I manage to complete are too small or unrelated to building a viable business. I've been re-reading this incredible thread HOT! - MINDSET - Are you an ENTP and wonder why you can't get things done when working for yourself? - While I'm an INFP, my Ne causes most of the issues highlighted by the OP and drives me nuts. I've tried applying the explore and exploit approach with good success. The problem is that all these small pieces of work on different topics aren't really useful to build a business (unless I'm overlooking something).

Wow, you're amazing......
Let's look into the future of you. 30 years from now, what have you built or done? And do you love what you have built? What do you FEEL about it? Describe in details.

 

[srodrigo]

Wow, you're amazing......
Let's look into the future of you. 30 years from now, what have you built or done? And do you love what you have built? What do you FEEL about it? Describe in details.

I don't think I'm amazing, but thank you

I would definitely feel great about building what I love. But this is "do what you love", and most of what I'd be doing for love doesn't translate into a business that can break the chains of trading time for money. I bet I might not feel that great after all if I see myself broke, unemployed and struggling to pay bills.

Even if I managed to channel my interests into some things that could become a suitable business, there would be a few of them. This is called polygamy, and doesn't tend to work. This is the part I'm missing from the ENTP post I linked above (which is otherwise spot on), how this works for entrepreneurs in the long run. Monogamy is what MJ preaches, and for a good reason. Business is competitive, spreading yourself into a few things is very hard to pull off. I have seen some people suggesting outsourcing. So let's say you are great at having many ideas, diving into them, then you get bored. Can you find someone else to complete your work? Maybe I need to try this approach... It would only work with a certain kind of projects, and it's probably expensive (e.g. hiring a good developer to complete my prototype), but worth a try.

Anyway, answering your question (I'll reply as if this was the end game, once I don't need to work for money):
- I've got some music projects in mind. Piano recordings of any kind. I think I would probably create content for beginners, to give back something. And original compositions, I loved scoring since I saw a score for the first time. Creating music has something that not even creating apps from thin air has.
- This one is a bit less clear, but I'd still write code. Something that challenges me as a developer. I was into certain kind of video games (roguelikes) last week, as the technical challenge is great, and you are creating an open world, so the possibilities are infinite. But I would probably dive into other kinds of projects, specially now that AI is starting to take off. At the end, it should be something that people like too, otherwise it's fun for a while but it won't stick.
- Maybe something unrelated to the above if I feel like I've got something else to share and people like it. I like writing (maybe too much...), so blogging suits me well. What topics, I'm not sure (probably music or coding, which would be my areas of expertise), but anything as long as people like it. Maybe at that stage of life I'd have a lot to share about multiple topics, who knows.

All these projects could work as businesses, but they are so saturated, and I'm so behind, that betting on them feels wrong compared to leveraging coding. Maybe blogging on a niche is the easiest, but still difficult.

 

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[Simon Angel]

It's been a year since last update. I thought I'd drop a line.

TL;DR: I've got nothing to show that would take me towards my goals

Lots of things happened on the personal side, but I'll spare you from that.

Good news

My contracting business went as well as the previous years. Now I'm taking a few months completely off as I've got some personal things going on that need focus, and I would need to take too much time off to start a new contract without pissing the client off. I'll go back onto the market by mid-March. But last year (Jan 2022-Dec-2022) was cool, a bit over £100k in profit. Not bad for a solo trader, and way more money than I need. The "problem" is that my income depends 100% on my time and it's me doing the work, which I haven't enjoyed much on this project. At least I managed to love coding again (ironically after the end of the contract), so I don't mind doing the work. But dealing with certain kinds of people...that drains me.

Bad news

The above is not working towards building a scalable business (being it video games or something else, doesn't matter). I've built a few prototypes but they died before going to market for different reasons. I keep switching interests too quickly and can't really stick to something for more than 6 months (and 6 months is already a struggle).

I've thought about scaling, converting this business into a software agency. I've worked at enough of them to know this is not something I'd be happy with. Digital products scale better and are more interesting. I'm thinking of a productised product (courses, training, etc.), maybe this is a better option.

I have some new areas to explore that can suit my lone wolf approach without requiring a team that I'd probably mismanage (I really suck at that). Mainly: code boilerplates, blogs, and music.

Code boilterplates

I'm not sure about whether ChatGPT will make this obsolete, but I've seen one-man bands building a business around this. I'm actually good at creating boilerplates (have built a few before, both for employers and for myself), and looks like a business that's manageable for me and plays my strengths. Clients would require changes, fixes and new features, but looks very manageable as I would be playing my main strength: writing high quality code. I had a look at the market and I still need to find a niche that's not fully served. There are quite a few players, but there might be room for improvement, and I see a few of them focusing on out of fashion technologies. I'll see if I look into this properly this week at some point, looks like a good fit.

Blogs

I like writing (and I want to think that I'm decent at it) and there's still money to be made with blogs. Now the questions are:

• Do I have the focus to not get distracted after a few blog posts? - I fear that I'd have the same issue as usual, getting distracted and not being able to commit to 1-2 posts per week, having big gaps.
• What niche can I write about that can be profitable? - My main skills resolve around programming, music, and a few random interests I'm not quite qualified to talk about (mainly MBTI, which I considered getting certified in, but I'm still not a psychologist).
  • Programming articles take a long time to write properly. I'd need to study what other people are doing, but I have the feeling that this is a tough road, and my personal blog sucked in terms of views despite having some good programming articles. Keeping a good pace is difficult compared to, say, talking about personal improvement and other non-technical topics.
  • Music: since I'm into this, I toyed with the idea of writing articles about equipment or software. Equipment is hard to pull unless you are rich and can buy all the stuff yourself, or already have a large audience and can get it for free for a review. Software is more doable, but still not cheap to invest hundreds on some plugin just to review it...along with another 9, probably as expensive, plugins.

Music

I bought a couple of digital pianos and got back into playing. And also into composing. I got a few original compositions that need a bit of polish, but are ready to be recorded and published (sheetmusic included).

I also did one piano arrangement of a popular anime song. The quality of the sheemusic leaves the big players in the dust (this is not pointless bragging, I checked what they are selling). The downside is that it took me one month to get this done, lol. I'm either very slow or I'm aiming for something too perfect. The big YouTubers ship 1-2 videos a week, which is a crazy pace I can't keep up with even if I were full-time into this.

Wondering if I can create a piano course. Many people love to play anime music, so maybe a course that teaches how to play in this style, skipping the classical music foundations. As a piano teacher, I wouldn't do this, but maybe it's a good business idea as long as people aren't too concerned about a suboptimal technique. This project would take quite a while probably, as I'd need to make many arrangements. It would probably have some downsides like copyright...

For some reason, I feel like this avenue is less likely to work out at scale than focusing on software development businesses...

Other things

I've also tried getting into Shopify apps, as it's not an extremely saturated market yet. I got a bit put off though since it's a big doggy: people try to get reviews at all costs so their apps climb the ranks. This means shipping shit, offering great customer support, and getting a 4-5 stars review after fixing the mess. Well...

After reading some apps founders, the customer support part looks like it's a larger slice than you'd have on a normal SaaS, for some reason. I'm cool with offering customer support (and I think I'd do great) and understand it's extremely important, but for some reason e-shop owners tend to be a bigger pain in the a$$ than other kinds of customer. I've put this in the backburner for now as my personal endeavours were sucking my attention too much to build and release a Shopify app and being unable to put the attention that surely would be needed if I got people to use it. Maybe I'll get back into it.

I started writing a couple of books that didn't go anywhere either. One was a fiction book (only managed to write 1-2 chapters before thinking, what's the point?). The other one was about MBTI and software development (but it felt like giving medical advice without being a doctor, lol).

I've been toying with the idea of making another, bigger video game. Something in the lines of Caves of Qud. Dwarf Fortress has recently made F*ck you money on Steam. The problem is that this kind of games take AGES to make. The latter has been around for 20 years and developers living off donations. There are also a ton of enthusiasts who make games for free (this might be an advantage though, bigger market?). So not quite an appealing business.

At least I figured out what I want if I ever manage to have enough money to not have to work again (not a simple question to answer). I want to write software, possibly open-source (to give back to other people), or roguelike video games, which are quite a challenge in many ways and would make me grow. I also want to split my time between this and making music. This would be my ideal "work" day if I didn't need to work for money.

To summarise

I'm still struggling with focus, and the things I manage to complete are too small or unrelated to building a viable business. I've been re-reading this incredible thread HOT! - MINDSET - Are you an ENTP and wonder why you can't get things done when working for yourself? - While I'm an INFP, my Ne causes most of the issues highlighted by the OP and drives me nuts. I've tried applying the explore and exploit approach with good success. The problem is that all these small pieces of work on different topics aren't really useful to build a business (unless I'm overlooking something).

100k euros on your own sounds pretty damn good as long as you have enough free time to follow your other pursuits. Many people here with multiple 7-figure businesses probably pay themselves that much as a salary or less.

What does a typical work day for you look like?

Oh, and when it comes to the Ne stuff, I decided to just embrace it. The world is full of possibilities and intriguing shit and there's nothing wrong with wanting to experience it all. It doesn't always have to go anywhere or lead to big things as long as it enriches your reality. And, as far as I know, that's the only reality that really matters.

I break the rules of like half of the CENTS model and yet I'm 100% sure I have a better QOL (especially when it comes to owning my time) than the majority here. My business isn't fastlane on paper, but it's peak fastlane in actuality.

If the above sounds like something you're already doing with your programming hustle, then do you really need more or does the peer pressure around here make you feel "guilty" of not wanting more?

And if it doesn't, I'd work on getting to a point where you have 95% of your day free while still making 100K a year. It can be as simple as renegotiating deals with your clients, working on bigger projects, or utilizing new AI stuff to cut your workload by 80% or whatever.

People can talk all they want, I can bet you most of them just wouldn't be able to do this and it pisses them off.

 

[srodrigo]

100k euros on your own sounds pretty damn good as long as you have enough free time to follow your other pursuits. Many people here with multiple 7-figure businesses probably pay themselves that much as a salary or less.

What does a typical work day for you look like?

I typically work 3-6 months contracts that tend to get extended to 1-2 years. I usually work 5 days a day when on a contract. So it looks a lot like 9-5 in that aspect. Similar to freelancing, but way more profitable IMO (at least for software developers) because I get paid for every day I work, 100% guaranteed (unless the client goes bust, but rare), and don't need to waste 25-50% of the time "hustling" to find clients for small projects every other day. And I can take time off pretty much when I want and usually for as long as I want (specially between contracts, like now, 3.5-4 months off and I can still pay the bills without worrying).

The typical work day is what you can imagine, coding (when I'm lucky enough to not be in pointless meetings), usually as part of a team of either permanent employees or other contractors. I haven't found it too fulfilling though. It feels like these kind of companies hire contractors for a reason: they've got a good amount of issues. That's fine, but most of the time these issues come from high above and there's little you can do about it. The people you work with typically tend to be settled on their ways, and making any lasting impact is difficult. You often encounter a lot of resistance to change, and it can be very frustrating. Sometimes I even have to comply to shit practices because "this is the way it's done" or "for consistency". I even hated being a programmer. I'm much better off now, and I hope the next client is a bit better in this aspect.

Another option that I'm resistant to is to do one-off bespoke projects. I've explained this before, but this is risky as F and tends to go badly because of the nature and complexity of developing software from scratch. Basically, no one knows how long it'll take, and if someone does, they lie. So I've seen previous employers even making a loss (and having us overworked to death). Not my business model.

Working remotely is a must for me because I have to move around a lot these days, and there's absolutely no need for people to work from an office, so I reject clients who are looking for office flowerpots. I'm also allowed to have other clients, so I don't have to comply to their 9-5 necessarily (although I try for everyone's convenience, but nothing stops me from working on something else and catch up later). I like this flexibility even if I sell my time for money.

Oh, and when it comes to the Ne stuff, I decided to just embrace it. The world is full of possibilities and intriguing shit and there's nothing wrong with wanting to experience it all. It doesn't always have to go anywhere or lead to big things as long as it enriches your reality. And, as far as I know, that's the only reality that really matters.

I know. I've had this conflict between focusing on a business for X years and just enjoying myself producing whatever. It's led to no F*ck-you-money business so far, and not as much fun stuff either. I'm definitely happier when I focus on my ever-changing interests compared to thinking what other business I can build to quit contracting. But I still want actual time freedom eventually.

I break the rules of like half of the CENTS model and yet I'm 100% sure I have a better QOL (especially when it comes to owning my time) than the majority here. My business isn't fastlane on paper, but it's peak fastlane in actuality.

Yeah, you work like 1-2h a day (last time I read) and you seem to enjoy it while having enough money to do your things. You could also scale up if needed, so it's not like some FIRE folk eating ramen in their 20 square foot cave. So I agree that you've struck your own particular fastlane so far (which is different for everyone anyway).

If the above sounds like something you're already doing with your programming hustle, then do you really need more or does the peer pressure around here make you feel "guilty" of not wanting more?

Sometimes I wonder about this. Sometimes I take some (short) periods of doing client work, then enjoying other things in the evenings or weekends. But I always reach a point where I hate the former and the latter looks like a waste of time. It's been cyclical. I still feel like a need a few million bucks to be able to enjoy a life of exploration and learning without worrying or having to cut off on Monday at 9am.

I feel I'm less happy since I started reading MJ's books But I think it's been for good because something smelled fishy even at my dream job (which honeymoon eventually faded out anyway). Good kick in the a$$ that contributed to where I am now, so I'm glad of the change. I just need to find the way to have more free time in the long-run.

And if it doesn't, I'd work on getting to a point where you have 95% of your day free while still making 100K a year. It can be as simple as renegotiating deals with your clients, working on bigger projects, or utilizing new AI stuff to cut your workload by 80% or whatever.

That's one viable plan too, no need for millions upfront to secure the next 40 years. Getting paid more is kind of difficult though, but I'm definitely open to find ways. I read about some sort of famous developers declining $2,000/day or hour, or something ridiculous like that. But I'm not there and would require 120% commitment to build a brand and expertise I can sell for ridiculous money, at which point maybe it's worth just trying some CENTS stuff instead, which might be more reliable.

People can talk all they want, I can bet you most of them just wouldn't be able to do this and it pisses them off.

Could be. I want to think that most people want to help even if their way doesn't quite fit all sizes.

 

[Simon Angel]

That's one viable plan too, no need for millions upfront to secure the next 40 years. Getting paid more is kind of difficult though, but I'm definitely open to find ways. I read about some sort of famous developers declining $2,000/day or hour, or something ridiculous like that. But I'm not there and would require 120% commitment to build a brand and expertise I can sell for ridiculous money, at which point maybe it's worth just trying some CENTS stuff instead, which might be more reliable.

Have a look at this: https://www.freshbooks.com/fbstatic...te-assets/other/Breaking-the-Time-Barrier.pdf

It's not an unfamiliar concept or something that's not in TMF , but it's a great book that I still mentally refer to when quoting clients and setting up deals. Really drills in the idea of value =/ time and takes about an hour to read.

 

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[srodrigo]

Have a look at this: https://www.freshbooks.com/fbstatic...te-assets/other/Breaking-the-Time-Barrier.pdf

It's not an unfamiliar concept or something that's not in TMF , but it's a great book that I still mentally refer to when quoting clients and setting up deals. Really drills in the idea of value =/ time and takes about an hour to read.

Thanks for the suggestion. Funnily enough, I was thinking about re-reading it (I read it 4-5 years ago). I think it's a little gem, really informative and also very chill to read. I'll definitely review it soon.

 

[srodrigo]

BTW I forgot to mention that I was considering how to grow my consultancy company with courses targeted at people who struggle with this or that. I'm not sure about typical prices for enterprises, but maybe this is way better than coding. More as an extra really, as it's difficult to fill your time with training. I can see a few issues though:

1. The topic is the same I soft-probed on Linkedin and didn't get much reception.
2. No one is going to come to me and ask me for this training. The best way I can think of is to pitch it once working for a client if I see that people would benefit from it. Then they get an early access version at a standard day rate, which is cheaper than if I were to sell them the course as a standalone service, and I get feedback so I can improve it, as well as a testimonial.

I think I might have a look at this when I have some time.

---

On another note, I've indulged myself into blogging research for a couple of days. I’m exploring this as a possibility (trying to find some niche where there’s money to be traded for great content), but I'm a bit lost. Any threads that would be useful to have a look at here? For now, I’ve checked out Adam Enfroy (apparently makes $300k/month, focused on affiliate marketing), and Scott Delong (he sold quite a few websites but he’s more old school than the other guy, and doesn’t focus as much on affiliate links as he started way earlier).

I've followed their advice and listed topics that have an audience and I know (or could be interested in knowing) about. I've used Keyword Planner for keyword research. I'd like some opinions of this if possible (maybe @Andy Black - I'm waiting for your Figuring out blogging thread ).

Visiting new places	High volume Low competition Not sure about affiliate programs here.. it's not that most restaurants, etc. have them.
Cats and dogs	High volume High competition Affiliate programs: the usual pets stuff owners buy online
Programming	High volume Low competition Affiliate programs: books, courses, and some online subscriptions to code academies
MBTI	High volume Low competition Affiliate programs: a few test platforms, books, courses
Entrepreneurship	High volume Low competition (depends on the keywords) Affiliate programs: books, courses, coaching
Personal development	Decent volume Low competition Affiliate programs: coaching (I saw Tony Robbins', lol)
Music production or digital instruments	Medium volume High competition Affiliate programs: plenty of them

If I'm not wrong, the ideal scenario is high volume and low competition plus good affiliate programs to choose from. I should discard anything with high competition, as it's quite difficult to get into. The ones that look more interesting and tick the boxes are:

Programming
This one is really puzzling... Decent/High volume for many keywords (how to learn Python, best JavaScript libraries, and the likes) with surprisingly low (sometimes medium) competition. Yet, I don’t see many blogs using affiliate programs, or even ads at all. Maybe I’m missing something here? I get that this niche can be time-consuming to create content, but looks to me like an opportunity. I wonder whether developers (main audience) smell affiliate links and ads (or just block them). There are actually a few affiliate programs I found (mostly online coding academies). Most people use these blogs just for personal branding and then selling courses, which is cool in the long-term.

This one would be the obvious choice as long as it’s viable, and I could create actual quality content/tutorials on top of affiliate stuff. But people don't seem to go hard into it. What am I missing?

MBTI
Love the topic, and I'd be happy to dive more into it, but I'd probably suffer from impostor syndrome. Even if I paid for some training, I'm still not a psychologist.

Entrepreneurship
This is an obvious one too. I love the topic and consume anything related. I'm not sure about affiliate programs though... maybe less to choose from. Also, I don't have a massive track record (although I'm not doing bad as a contractor), something that could make me fall into the guru category (I could maybe focus on what I currently do though).

Personal development
I've always been interested in this and has plenty of affiliate options. I'm very surprised that keywords had low competition though... I'm sure I'm missing something.

Any thoughts?

 

[Andy Black]

BTW I forgot to mention that I was considering how to grow my consultancy company with courses targeted at people who struggle with this or that. I'm not sure about typical prices for enterprises, but maybe this is way better than coding. More as an extra really, as it's difficult to fill your time with training. I can see a few issues though:

1. The topic is the same I soft-probed on Linkedin and didn't get much reception.
2. No one is going to come to me and ask me for this training. The best way I can think of is to pitch it once working for a client if I see that people would benefit from it. Then they get an early access version at a standard day rate, which is cheaper than if I were to sell them the course as a standalone service, and I get feedback so I can improve it, as well as a testimonial.

I think I might have a look at this when I have some time.

I forgot to mention that I'm not going to live here forever, so that's one of the reasons why I don't really want to double down into my current business, as it's quite local to the UK. Maybe some clients could repeat and stay, but looks a bit unlikely given their resistance to people working from abroad.

---

On another note, I've indulged myself into blogging research for a couple of days. I’m exploring this as a possibility (trying to find some niche where there’s money to be traded for great content), but I'm a bit lost. Any threads that would be useful to have a look at here? For now, I’ve checked out Adam Enfroy (apparently makes $300k/month, focused on affiliate marketing), and Scott Delong (he sold quite a few websites but he’s more old school than the other guy, and doesn’t focus as much on affiliate links as he started way earlier).

I've followed their advice and listed topics that have an audience and I know (or could be interested in knowing) about. I've used Keyword Planner for keyword research. I'd like some opinions of this if possible (maybe @Andy Black - I'm waiting for your Figuring out blogging thread ).

Visiting new places	High volume Low competition Not sure about affiliate programs here.. it's not that most restaurants, etc. have them.
Cats and dogs	High volume High competition Affiliate programs: the usual pets stuff owners buy online
Programming	High volume Low competition Affiliate programs: books, courses, and some online subscriptions to code academies
MBTI	High volume Low competition Affiliate programs: a few test platforms, books, courses
Entrepreneurship	High volume Low competition (depends on the keywords) Affiliate programs: books, courses, coaching
Personal development	Decent volume Low competition Affiliate programs: coaching (I saw Tony Robbins', lol)
Music production or digital instruments	Medium volume High competition Affiliate programs: plenty of them

If I'm not wrong, the ideal scenario is high volume and low competition plus good affiliate programs to choose from. I should discard anything with high competition, as it's quite difficult to get into. The ones that look more interesting and tick the boxes are:

Programming
This one is really puzzling... Decent/High volume for many keywords (how to learn Python, best JavaScript libraries, and the likes) with surprisingly low (sometimes medium) competition. Yet, I don’t see many blogs using affiliate programs, or even ads at all. Maybe I’m missing something here? I get that this niche can be time-consuming to create content, but looks to me like an opportunity. I wonder whether developers (main audience) smell affiliate links and ads (or just block them). There are actually a few affiliate programs I found (mostly online coding academies). Most people use these blogs just for personal branding and then selling courses, which is cool in the long-term.

This one would be the obvious choice as long as it’s viable, and I could create actual quality content/tutorials on top of affiliate stuff. But people don't seem to go hard into it. What am I missing?

MBTI
Love the topic, and I'd be happy to dive more into it, but I'd probably suffer from impostor syndrome. Even if I paid for some training, I'm still not a psychologist.

Entrepreneurship
This is an obvious one too. I love the topic and consume anything related. I'm not sure about affiliate programs though... maybe less to choose from. Also, I don't have a massive track record (although I'm not doing bad as a contractor), something that could make me fall into the guru category (I could maybe focus on what I currently do though).

Personal development
I've always been interested in this and has plenty of affiliate options. I'm very surprised that keywords had low competition though... I'm sure I'm missing something.

Any thoughts?

I think I had a thread about growing a blog. I didn't get very far as I get bored producing content in the hope people find it. My preference is to run ads and get real-time market data, and then build out pages/products based on market demand - that we can get in front of.

 

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