Hi all, I'm a pretty private person and have no idea why anyone on earth would want to read my biography, but here's a bit about myself.
I'm jumping into the fastlane for a couple reasons, with a countdown to 2018.
1. I'm American but had to move to Asia for a couple of years. I'll be moving back to the US by early 2018. Moving around willy nilly is bad for my current career. But more on that next.
2. I had some fancy degrees and the makings of a "career", but I'm ditching all that in my mid 30s. My career was my passion when I was young, but not anymore. After many years, I finally "made it" to the other side only to find out I can't stand it.
I'm not a musician, but the best way to explain it is to imagine you are a singer who loves music. You decide to follow your dream to be a pro singer. You grind for years. One day, you get signed to a label, the big dream. Well, working with a soulless corporate machine sucks. They kill your artistic vision. They destroy what music meant to you. The worst part? They try to change you into one of them. Nope, I'm not taking that. I'd rather quit music and focus on making money then.
3. I had my first kid recently. Those of you with kids will understand how much that changes your life's outlook and priorities.
You know what's funny? People thought after having a kid I would be willing to put up with more crap, since I would be worried about losing my job and supporting my family. (By the way, I used to be a model citizen, good ol' boy.)
Hahahaha. The exact opposite.
Taking care of my kid means exactly that - I will take care of my kid. I'm not relying on some bozo boss or dysfunctional corporation to take care of my kid (indirectly by making decisions about my salary). I want the responsibility. Just me versus the world. No hooligans allowed.
Because of 1-3, I'm switching to entrepreneur mode as my current job winds down by end of 2017. I have enough savings for at least 2 more years if I don't make another cent.
What I've done so far:
1. I've tested various cash flow streams, partially for backup plans, partially to test out new waters. I'm strapped for time (current job + new baby) so I have to be a bit selective in what I do.
I tried freelance writing briefly on 3 separate platforms. I just needed to convince myself that I could make at least 1K a month no matter what if everything else went wrong. With that done, I've moved on.
2. I've started building affiliate marketing websites. Yes, I know these are not end-game products. However, they fit my current time schedule, and it doesn't matter if I take a week off because of baby emergencies. Your work continues right where you left off. You can't do that with eCommerce.
I have a couple of sites. First ones failed. My second to last one is at $100/month and still growing.
Well, I wanted to prove that this method works. Now I know I can do it, even if 100/month is peanuts, It's like Neil Armstrong's steps versus leaps. The difference between zero and not zero is everything.
3. My last (most recent) site is still being built. I've taken a different approach. It's an affiliate site at the moment, but my goal will be more to build a brand and channel, rather than only to make a quick buck. Downstream I want to create products to sell. I spent a long, long time choosing the target audience before I started this site. I think I have a decent barometer of what makes people open wallets, or at least a much better idea than I did 6 months ago.
I don't know if this site will succeed yet, but I'm willing to put 5-10K into this project to find out. Half will be for content creation and the other half for promotion. I'm currently in the building phase, but should move into the promotion phase in 1-2 months time.
What I've learned so far.
1. Even though my "career" will end this year and I've grown to kind of hate it, I've still learned a lot. I suppose my career can be considered my first massive failure. I say that sort of proudly. Most people think failure is bad, but failure = experience, one step closer to succeeding.
In my failure, I've built and managed teams from scratch, built up physical equipment and locations, worked with (scammy Asian) vendors, handled budgets, interviewed and hired staff, and so on. Although I'm by no means an expert, I feel like I've gained a lot of business experience in a career which purportedly has nothing to do with business.
That's part of what gets me itching to start a real business. Why develop business skills in a dead end with no reward - why not develop those same skills in the fastlane.
2. My affiliate site building taught me a lot about how the internet works these days. Google, social media, plus the usual CSS, PHP, and so on. The technical parts are useful, but more importantly, I had to think and learn a lot about marketing. Marketing skills transcend any medium or technology. Trying to make a buck online forced me to think about products, markets, copywriting, scalability, and a whole load of other business facets.
The technical skills I gained are a bonus. I'll never be a technical genius, but at least I'll understand enough to know what needs to be done and hire the right person to do the job.
3. I've learned how to learn better. I read TMF recently, and I think I got a lot more out of it because I had already wrestled with some of the issues independently. When I browse around forums, if I re-read old comments, I get a lot more of them now compared to before. Things just click, or give me fresh ideas. It's a different mindset.
What's on the horizon:
1. My main site will probably take up most of my time for the rest of 2017. I don't think it's realistic to take on another project. That whole monogamy thing.
2. However, I do want to diversify away from the purely digital realm. Digital is great and convenient, but I feel like it has some downsides (not enough barriers to entry and so on). So while I don't have the time to work on physical products at the moment, I hope to nose around here and there to learn about it. Once 2018 arrives and I can devote 100% of my time (minus family duties), I want to take a serious look at working with physical products or services.
If I can get my site up and running by then, it will also give me a good test audience and marketing channel for free. That's the plan, anyways.
Whew. Did anyone actually read all of that? Back to work!
I'm jumping into the fastlane for a couple reasons, with a countdown to 2018.
1. I'm American but had to move to Asia for a couple of years. I'll be moving back to the US by early 2018. Moving around willy nilly is bad for my current career. But more on that next.
2. I had some fancy degrees and the makings of a "career", but I'm ditching all that in my mid 30s. My career was my passion when I was young, but not anymore. After many years, I finally "made it" to the other side only to find out I can't stand it.
I'm not a musician, but the best way to explain it is to imagine you are a singer who loves music. You decide to follow your dream to be a pro singer. You grind for years. One day, you get signed to a label, the big dream. Well, working with a soulless corporate machine sucks. They kill your artistic vision. They destroy what music meant to you. The worst part? They try to change you into one of them. Nope, I'm not taking that. I'd rather quit music and focus on making money then.
3. I had my first kid recently. Those of you with kids will understand how much that changes your life's outlook and priorities.
You know what's funny? People thought after having a kid I would be willing to put up with more crap, since I would be worried about losing my job and supporting my family. (By the way, I used to be a model citizen, good ol' boy.)
Hahahaha. The exact opposite.
Taking care of my kid means exactly that - I will take care of my kid. I'm not relying on some bozo boss or dysfunctional corporation to take care of my kid (indirectly by making decisions about my salary). I want the responsibility. Just me versus the world. No hooligans allowed.
Because of 1-3, I'm switching to entrepreneur mode as my current job winds down by end of 2017. I have enough savings for at least 2 more years if I don't make another cent.
What I've done so far:
1. I've tested various cash flow streams, partially for backup plans, partially to test out new waters. I'm strapped for time (current job + new baby) so I have to be a bit selective in what I do.
I tried freelance writing briefly on 3 separate platforms. I just needed to convince myself that I could make at least 1K a month no matter what if everything else went wrong. With that done, I've moved on.
2. I've started building affiliate marketing websites. Yes, I know these are not end-game products. However, they fit my current time schedule, and it doesn't matter if I take a week off because of baby emergencies. Your work continues right where you left off. You can't do that with eCommerce.
I have a couple of sites. First ones failed. My second to last one is at $100/month and still growing.
Well, I wanted to prove that this method works. Now I know I can do it, even if 100/month is peanuts, It's like Neil Armstrong's steps versus leaps. The difference between zero and not zero is everything.
3. My last (most recent) site is still being built. I've taken a different approach. It's an affiliate site at the moment, but my goal will be more to build a brand and channel, rather than only to make a quick buck. Downstream I want to create products to sell. I spent a long, long time choosing the target audience before I started this site. I think I have a decent barometer of what makes people open wallets, or at least a much better idea than I did 6 months ago.
I don't know if this site will succeed yet, but I'm willing to put 5-10K into this project to find out. Half will be for content creation and the other half for promotion. I'm currently in the building phase, but should move into the promotion phase in 1-2 months time.
What I've learned so far.
1. Even though my "career" will end this year and I've grown to kind of hate it, I've still learned a lot. I suppose my career can be considered my first massive failure. I say that sort of proudly. Most people think failure is bad, but failure = experience, one step closer to succeeding.
In my failure, I've built and managed teams from scratch, built up physical equipment and locations, worked with (scammy Asian) vendors, handled budgets, interviewed and hired staff, and so on. Although I'm by no means an expert, I feel like I've gained a lot of business experience in a career which purportedly has nothing to do with business.
That's part of what gets me itching to start a real business. Why develop business skills in a dead end with no reward - why not develop those same skills in the fastlane.
2. My affiliate site building taught me a lot about how the internet works these days. Google, social media, plus the usual CSS, PHP, and so on. The technical parts are useful, but more importantly, I had to think and learn a lot about marketing. Marketing skills transcend any medium or technology. Trying to make a buck online forced me to think about products, markets, copywriting, scalability, and a whole load of other business facets.
The technical skills I gained are a bonus. I'll never be a technical genius, but at least I'll understand enough to know what needs to be done and hire the right person to do the job.
3. I've learned how to learn better. I read TMF recently, and I think I got a lot more out of it because I had already wrestled with some of the issues independently. When I browse around forums, if I re-read old comments, I get a lot more of them now compared to before. Things just click, or give me fresh ideas. It's a different mindset.
What's on the horizon:
1. My main site will probably take up most of my time for the rest of 2017. I don't think it's realistic to take on another project. That whole monogamy thing.
2. However, I do want to diversify away from the purely digital realm. Digital is great and convenient, but I feel like it has some downsides (not enough barriers to entry and so on). So while I don't have the time to work on physical products at the moment, I hope to nose around here and there to learn about it. Once 2018 arrives and I can devote 100% of my time (minus family duties), I want to take a serious look at working with physical products or services.
If I can get my site up and running by then, it will also give me a good test audience and marketing channel for free. That's the plan, anyways.
Whew. Did anyone actually read all of that? Back to work!
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