Intro and AMA. Zero to $120k/mo and back down to $10k/mo with SEO.

[buildpath]

Hi everyone! I've been building and ranking niche sites since 2007.

The most I've ever made was back in 2013-2014 from my affiliate sites, with around $1.1m revenue in 2013.

However, Google updates halved that in 2014, and it's been going down gradually since then.

In the decades I've been doing this, I've watched many people achieve much more success than I ever have because they built a business that wasn't just a "stupid arbitrage game" that can be obliterated overnight by frequent Google algorithm updates, as MJ rightly says.

My Biggest Regrets

1. Being too naive: I thought if I was nice and respectful to others, they wouldn't do bad things to me. This led to losing money on investments due to misplaced trust.
   
   
2. Believing that what got me here would continue to bring success: This led to taking on too much risk in new projects that I thought would be "my next level." I tried to build an indie mobile game studio when that was the hot money grab thing to do. So dumb, guys.
   
   
3. Forex trading mishap: In 2014, I turned $120,000 into over $400,000 trading Forex using an automated signal service. After months of only a few trades per week, they completely switched their strategy, and I ended up with ~$780k unrealized profit and $700k unrealized loss. I had to use a bot to close the right trades simultaneously to avoid blowing the account. It was the most stressful experience of my life.
   
   
4. Holding onto assets for too long: I always thought, "This is going great, and I am going to scale these websites even bigger!" Then, something like a Google algorithm change would happen, my site traffic would decline, and years later, I'd sell it for a fraction of what I could have sold for earlier.
   
   
5. Not restructuring for tax benefits: I believed my accountants and CPAs over the years who told me all I needed was an LLC to save money on taxes. I didn't learn about declaring S-Corp and taking a reasonable salary until 2018, which led to paying more taxes than I should have.
   
   
6. Not building a sustainable business: My biggest regret is that it's 2024, and I have not managed to build a sustainable business that doesn't depend on ranking in Google.
   
   
7. Not participating in Fastlane Community sooner. I could have asked for advice here since long ago when I read TMF . But I just lurked periodically. People here could have helped me avoid my mistakes.

Current Situation (April 23, 2024)

• My directory sites with thousands of city pages still get a little traffic from {keyword} in {city} searches across the US, earning ~$10k/month for now. This funnels leads to my supplement product on Shopify, which I've been running since 2016.
• The directory sites used to perform much better but lost significant traffic over the last 6 months.
• They still have thousands of pages of actual SPUN content (using PHP and spintax), so pages have similar content that often reads nonsensically.
• No manual actions, but I think the algorithm can easily determine it's overall spammy.
• I also have a lot of out-of-my-lane content that I plan to noindex.
• I'm trying to build other things. See below....

Building my first SaaS (only $178 MRR )

In May 2023, I started building a software tool to help increase the quality of content on my directory sites.

It's another AI content writing tool, but I'm not aware of any competitors that can do what I need exactly.

I recently pushed the bulk generation features live, which is mainly what I need to improve the directory sites.

I want to start a progress thread/journal here as I try to build that tool into a business.

While there are plenty of sites using AI content and still ranking well, I know the hype stage of AI content writing tools is gone.

I can only hope that there is still some market there, and maybe if I am smart, I can reach $5-$10k MRR.

I've heard of some other AI writing tools doing $20k or even $50k MRR+, but that could just be follower/engagement chasing on social media and lies.

I recognize that I'm building a shovel business when many people seem to be throwing down their shovels and giving up on their content sites.

But I started building it in May 2023, and I might as well see if I can get any traction.

Freelance Work (love/hate)

Meanwhile, I'm doing freelance Shopify/Bigcommerce development.

Fiverr Income
I make $500-$1500 per month on Fiverr. Sometimes I get great long term clients from there so overall it HAS been worth my time. But Fiverr easily takes over most of my day because of new inquiries coming in. I do one-off custom work like theme tweaks and bug fixes, so I discuss with each person first, get access to their store and check the code, then finally give them the price. But that takes so much time. Multiply times 5-6 inquiries in a day and the cost of the distraction, and I don't manage to get much time for actual client work, let alone working on my other projects like my SaaS.

Independent Freelance Income
I have one client paying $4995/month for the last year for unlimited monthly dev subscription.

I've become like their in-house IT department, and I really enjoy it because they count on me in multiple ways. They have my cell number for emergencies but have only texted me twice over the last year. They are very appreciative and respectful of my time, and they don't have any bureaucracy that prevents me from suggesting ways to improve conversion rate, AOV, page speed, email automations/campaigns, deliverability, etc.

Sometimes, I get the chance to build a fun automation project to get my work done.

For example, in BigCommerce, the only way to add custom content and layout to brand pages is with custom brand templates. You need a unique html file for every brand. Nothing can be edited in BC admin.

They stock a LOT of brands, so I designed and coded a custom brand template and created a Python script that would generate content for each section of the brand page template, including the FAQ accordion, using the OpenAI API.

Of course, I prompt it to make the content read more like a human wrote it, without any "delving," "encapsulating" or "unveiling".

My FTE

Yeah, I'd say my FTE is happening right now. I'm trying to do whatever I can to get cashflow in, so my time and focus are split across too many efforts. After recent declines for my directory sites and ecommerce income due to the Google March update, I'm just finally so tired of enduring decades of these ups and downs, with more downs than ups over the last 10 years.
Because my income depends on search traffic, I have zero control over my future. I've known this for 20 years and just played the game, endured it, worked really hard at it, while also trying to create other opportunities to build something more sustainable. I have not managed to do that so far. That's just how it goes.

My wife's friend works at a hardware tech company and said they need more people on her team, and is trying to refer me in. My wife isn't pushing me hard on it but she is excited about the idea of a steady salary and insurance benefits. If I apply and get the job, my new life will be...

• Total commute 2 hours daily and traffic is often bad so maybe more.
• 8am-5pm, M-F. Pays a little extra for overtime and weekends.
• A couple weeks pto/year
• Salary is only $70k/year, but at this time I need another $6k/mo income to handle our family finances. I could really use that money. I just don't want to trade all my time and energy for it knowing there's not much opportunity for increase, and I don't want to become a manager of people.
• The work sounds very boring and it's not related to any of my current skills. I would be importing big data into dataviz tools and preparing reports for execs to understand production issues. My skill is in SEO, Next.js, React, PostgreSQL, Wordpress, Shopify, BigCommerce, etc... dev world...
• I take care of a lot of things with kids and at home because my wife has her own business and clients too and does not work at home. If I take this job, a lot of family logistical work will shift from me to her.
• I will no longer have any freedom over my time.
• The idea of taking a job makes me feel physically ill because I've actually never had a job before. I'm 38 and I've spent my life working solo because I never wanted to have a job and a boss and corporate politics, etc.
• If I take the job, I will have to quit freelancing on Fiverr, as I will only have just enough time for my $4995/mo client. If I could just get one more client like that, I wouldn't even need to consider this job.
• If I take this job, I also probably might as well give up on my SaaS too because I won't have any time to work on user acquisition or improving it.
• I feel like an a$$ if I don't apply for this job. But I also feel like I'm watching myself die if I do take it..

So yeah... AMA. I'm also hoping for suggestions on what route to pursue going forward. I want to get one more monthly dev subscription and get my SaaS to at least $2k/mo MRR. It doesn't sound like much but it would be huge for me.

This is too long. If anyone replies, cool.

UPDATE 1: It might sound like I still make more than enough money to support my family. However I still have old business debt I need to pay off from the slow painful ride down over the last 10 years. At this point, I have history of investing money I couldn't really afford to throw away, trying to get my business growing again instead of declining. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes Google's algo update would boost my sites up higher than ever. Then another update would crash them lower again.

In my ecom/supplement business, I initially had a partner. It ended up with me doing almost all the work and him not doing any of the things he said he was going to do for the business. We got along very well and it was my first partnership, and I'm dumb so far, right? So of course we didn't have a proper operating agreement. It just said we both own 50%. Great job Ian... So, around 2020-2021, along with business cash reserves, I got a loan to get me enough cash to buy him out after a lengthy mediation process. I still made more profit than I would have if he stayed in the company, at least.

I owe $20,400 on my loan at 3.75%, and am paying $500/mo on that.

I also was out of inventory in 2023 for 6 damn months because of delays at my manufacturer. That entire time, my traffic was increasing but I had to promote an affiliate offer instead, which earned way less than with my own product. So the business income dropped significantly for 6 months in 2023. Then in sept 2023, I FINALLY got 2500 bottles back in stock! Then 2 days later, Google's helpful content update dropped my traffic by 60% and it continued declining from there. Yeah, felt quite sorry for myself, but it's my fault for having no control. This has just been my world I've tried to make work since 2005. So I still owe $10,000 on a business credit card for that inventory which I'm selling through very slowly.

My business expenses also up card debt on another business credit card over the 6 months I had no inventory, and since the Google helpful content update in september 2023, I've had a hard time paying it down.

We don't carry balances on our personal cards but this business debt is hanging over me, and that's why I need more income than I currently have.

Lastly... looks like another Google algo update is rolling out this week (currently it's 4/24/2024), and my traffic has been halved again. So that $10k/month revenue I mentioned earlier may soon be more like $5k or even 3k or 1k.. who knows.

The recurring theme over the years here is... "If i just keep trying, it will get better. I will keep trying" because that's how I survived since high school and it worked for me, sometimes very well.

Maybe I will have to take this $70k/year job after all. I don't get replies for any dev jobs I apply to because I am not senior, have no degree, and don't have 10 years experience managing a team of engineers.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

The fiverr thing sounds time consuming for little money. How did you get that big dev subscriber? Can you repeat that to get more of them? Or target that market in some way?

 

[buildpath]

The fiverr thing sounds time consuming for little money. How did you get that big dev subscriber? Can you repeat that to get more of them? Or target that market in some way?

Ironically my big dev subscriber originally found me on Fiverr. They have multiple brick and mortar stores and some online stores and they do high six figures per month in sales. I've been trying to think about how I could attract more clients like them. My thought is that rather than appearing to just offer unlimited Shopify development or unlimited Bigcommerce development, I should try a different angle, like... your ecommerce dev and IT department, on demand, just a text or email away, with unlimited tasks for unlimited stores, doing one task at a time.

But I would need a way to get warm leads for that without spending on ads. No ideas right now.

 

[StrikingViper69]

Ironically my big dev subscriber originally found me on Fiverr. They have multiple brick and mortar stores and some online stores and they do high six figures per month in sales. I've been trying to think about how I could attract more clients like them. My thought is that rather than appearing to just offer unlimited Shopify development or unlimited Bigcommerce development, I should try a different angle, like... your ecommerce dev and IT department, on demand, just a text or email away, with unlimited tasks for unlimited stores, doing one task at a time.

But I would need a way to get warm leads for that without spending on ads. No ideas right now.

Ask your client for referrals?
Cold call?
Help on shopify support forums / Reddit?

 

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[buildpath]

Ask your client for referrals?
Cold call?
Help on shopify support forums / Reddit?

I have tried those except cold calling since my expectation is that nobody is going to even remotely consider working with me from a cold call.

I saw somebody suggest reaching how to companies directly about open jobs that they have and offering my service since it would cost them less. So I am planning to do that on LinkedIn soon but I am definitely not expecting any results. I figure if those companies wanted to outsource it instead of going house, then they would not be posting a job

 

[Subsonic]

It seems you have some high value skills and the ability to bring in money. If what you say is true, I do not doubt you in reaching your current goals and beyond.
However, the bottleneck of your finances seems to be the defensive. You say you earn about 10k a month from the sites (if that is revenue, it will be at the very least 1k profit), additionally to 5k a month as a dev and then some more from fiver work.
After taxes, there should be at least 4k over, which is more than enough to feed a family on and live reasonably well. With the income from your wife, there should be no need for 1 or 2 thousand more a month.

Going to the job could cost you everything, and the marginal increase in income will end up being spent on superfluous things to medicate the pain. Getting rid of the car, downsizing the home or something similar, while painful, is the more responsible choice from my perspective.

Yet this is only my deduction from your thread. Reality might be different. Still, someone who already earns a middle class income and "needs" more money is almost always simply spending more than they need to or, importantly, can afford. They also always think that they are then exception to the rule and that the financed car or expensive mortgage really is important.

 

[MTF]

Awesome intro, thank you for sharing @buildpath.

Holding onto assets for too long: I always thought, "This is going great, and I am going to scale these websites even bigger!" Then, something like a Google algorithm change would happen, my site traffic would decline, and years later, I'd sell it for a fraction of what I could have sold for earlier.

My directory sites with thousands of city pages still get a little traffic from {keyword} in {city} searches across the US, earning ~$10k/month for now. This funnels leads to my supplement product on Shopify, which I've been running since 2016.

Maybe considering the above, it's a good time to sell it? It could fetch $200-300k assuming 20-30x multiples.

I make $500-$1500 per month on Fiverr. Sometimes I get great long term clients from there so overall it HAS been worth my time. But Fiverr easily takes over most of my day because of new inquiries coming in. I do one-off custom work like theme tweaks and bug fixes, so I discuss with each person first, get access to their store and check the code, then finally give them the price. But that takes so much time. Multiply times 5-6 inquiries in a day and the cost of the distraction, and I don't manage to get much time for actual client work, let alone working on my other projects like my SaaS.

Any chance to get a cheap VA to respond to new inquiries and free up your time?

Salary is only $70k/year, but at this time I need another $6k/mo income to handle our family finances. I could really use that money. I just don't want to trade all my time and energy for it knowing there's not much opportunity for increase, and I don't want to become a manager of people.

I'm confused here. You're making $10k a month from that directory, $5k a month from that one client, and up to $1k a month from Fiverr. So you're making $16k a month and you're still $6k short to handle your family finances?

Unless you have like 10 kids or live in some extremely expensive area (doubtful if you live in Tennessee), this sounds like a problem with managing your cost of living rather than making money.

I feel like an a$$ if I don't apply for this job. But I also feel like I'm watching myself die if I do take it..

With all the things you have going on, getting the job means that you're most likely not going to grow anytime soon. Maybe if it paid double that amount that could help with savings but otherwise it looks like a trap.

 

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[Devilery]

Awesome intro, thank you for sharing @buildpath.





Maybe considering the above, it's a good time to sell it? It could fetch $200-300k assuming 20-30x multiples.



Any chance to get a cheap VA to respond to new inquiries and free up your time?



I'm confused here. You're making $10k a month from that directory, $5k a month from that one client, and up to $1k a month from Fiverr. So you're making $16k a month and you're still $6k short to handle your family finances?

Unless you have like 10 kids or live in some extremely expensive area (doubtful if you live in Tennessee), this sounds like a problem with managing your cost of living rather than making money.



With all the things you have going on, getting the job means that you're most likely not going to grow anytime soon. Maybe if it paid double that amount that could help with savings but otherwise it looks like a trap.

THIS! @buildpath your websites are making $10K, and you have a $5K client, how is Fiverr worth doing? Proportionally, seems like you're getting much less per hour.

I'm also curious about that, you NEED an extra $6K for living expenses, or do you just want $6K for extra stuff (nothing wrong with that)? If it's truly a need, I'm genuinely curious what your lifestyle looks like spending $20K on just living expenses.

I'm making significantly less but seems like you could sell your websites while they still have value, and focus on getting more clients like the one you have, stop doing Fiverr, and definitely, not take up that job offer as you'd barely have any time left to do other stuff.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

My wife's friend works at a hardware tech company and said they need more people on her team, and is trying to refer me in. My wife isn't pushing me hard on it but she is excited about the idea of a steady salary and insurance benefits. If I apply and get the job, my new life will be...

• Total commute 2 hours daily and traffic is often bad so maybe more.
• 8am-5pm, M-F. Pays a little extra for overtime and weekends.
• A couple weeks pto/year
• Salary is only $70k/year, but at this time I need another $6k/mo income to handle our family finances. I could really use that money. I just don't want to trade all my time and energy for it knowing there's not much opportunity for increase, and I don't want to become a manager of people.

I don't get it.

You have clearly proven you have the ability to earn money on your own with high-value skills, likely with higher upsides than $70k/year, and unless I misread your post, you're already at $10K+/mo.

 

[buildpath]

THIS! @buildpath your websites are making $10K, and you have a $5K client, how is Fiverr worth doing? Proportionally, seems like you're getting much less per hour.

I'm also curious about that, you NEED an extra $6K for living expenses, or do you just want $6K for extra stuff (nothing wrong with that)? If it's truly a need, I'm genuinely curious what your lifestyle looks like spending $20K on just living expenses.

I'm making significantly less but seems like you could sell your websites while they still have value, and focus on getting more clients like the one you have, stop doing Fiverr, and definitely, not take up that job offer as you'd barely have any time left to do other stuff.

I don't get it.

You have clearly proven you have the ability to earn money on your own with high-value skills, likely with higher upsides than $70k/year, and unless I misread your post, you're already at $10K+/mo.

Unfortunately it now looks like that $10k/month is about to drop significantly. New Google update rolling out and it's halved my traffic again. Control... smh.

Also MJ, I may have skills, even marketable dev skills (building my SaaS startup Topyc in Next.js / React for example) but with the exception of my 5k/mo client, I have not been able to generate significant income with those skills, whether by getting more 5k/mo clients, or scaling up smaller ticket services. I suck at selling, especially right now when my self esteem is at an all time low and if I didn't have a family I may have just checked out because of being tired of 20 years of failing to create a sustainable business.

Anyway, I get why my post is confusing.

It might sound like I still make more than enough money to support my family. However I still have old business debt I need to pay off from the slow painful ride down over the last 10 years. At this point, I have history of investing money I couldn't really afford to throw away, trying to get my business growing again instead of declining. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes Google's algo update would boost my sites up higher than ever. Then another update would crash them lower again.

In my ecom/supplement business, I initially had a partner. It ended up with me doing almost all the work and him not doing any of the things he said he was going to do for the business. We got along very well and it was my first partnership, and I'm dumb so far, right? So of course we didn't have a proper operating agreement. It just said we both own 50%. Great job Ian... So, around 2020-2021, along with business cash reserves, I got a loan to get me enough cash to buy him out after a lengthy mediation process. I still made more profit than I would have if he stayed in the company, at least.

I owe $20,400 on my loan at 3.75%, and am paying $500/mo on that.

I also was out of inventory in 2023 for 6 damn months because of delays at my manufacturer. That entire time, my traffic was increasing but I had to promote an affiliate offer instead, which earned way less than with my own product. So the business income dropped significantly for 6 months in 2023. Then in sept 2023, I FINALLY got 2500 bottles back in stock! Then 2 days later, Google's helpful content update dropped my traffic by 60% and it continued declining from there. Yeah, felt quite sorry for myself, but it's my fault for having no control. This has just been my world I've tried to make work since 2005. So I still owe $10,000 on a business credit card for that inventory which I'm selling through very slowly.

My business expenses also racked up debt on another business credit card over the 6 months I had no inventory, and since the Google helpful content update in september 2023, I've had a hard time paying it down. I've transferred the balance of $20k to new cards with 0% APR until mid 2025 to save on interest at least...

We don't carry balances on our personal cards but this business debt is hanging over me, and that's why I need more income than I currently have.

Lastly... as I mentioned at the top of my reply here, it looks like another Google algo update is rolling out this week (currently it's 4/24/2024), and my traffic has been halved again. So that $10k/month revenue I mentioned earlier may soon be more like $5k or even 3k or 1k.. who knows.

The recurring theme over the years here is... "If i just keep trying, it will get better. I will keep trying" because that's how I survived since high school and it worked for me, sometimes very well.

Maybe I will have to take this $70k/year job after all. I don't get replies for any dev jobs I apply to because I am not senior, have no degree, and don't have 10 years experience managing a team of engineers.

Writing all this, I don't know what to say. I'm embarrassed and really ashamed I couldn't do better. I just made the best choice I knew how to, with my knowledge and information at the time in each case. My view is, I'm terrible at business, and I'm extremely lucky that I've even been able to survive to this point.

 

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[buildpath]

Maybe considering the above, it's a good time to sell it? It could fetch $200-300k assuming 20-30x multiples.

Any chance to get a cheap VA to respond to new inquiries and free up your time?

With all the things you have going on, getting the job means that you're most likely not going to grow anytime soon. Maybe if it paid double that amount that could help with savings but otherwise it looks like a trap.

Thanks for your reply MTF.

1. I doubt this business will sell for 20-30x monthly multiple when it's trending down so hard over the last 3 years, with a nice reverse hockey stick over the last 6 months...

2. Cannot outsource the handling of inquiries the way I currently do it, as I show my expertise and passion to help them solve a problem in each unique case. I invest time discussing the issue with them in ways that shows I know what I'm doing and they made a good decision contacting me. I'm doubtful a VA can replicate that. I also can't afford to pay a VA anyway, even if they're cheap or I pay them on commission. Almosy everything i do on FIverr is small one-off unique dev jobs that require me to look at peoples' code. Low hanging fruit for me I guess but not scalable at all. The only reason I'm still doing it is because I got that $5k/mo client from Fiverr, plus two $5k store buildout clients as well since 2022. But mostly it's time wasters.

3. Yeah, I think the job is a trap too and it makes me sick to imagine going to the job. But Google just did another update this week and looks like my $10k/mo may be dropping to 5k or less, and I may be forced to take the job

 

[MTF]

Also MJ, I may have skills, even marketable dev skills (building my SaaS startup Topyc in Next.js / React for example) but with the exception of my 5k/mo client, I have not been able to generate significant income with those skills, whether by getting more 5k/mo clients, or scaling up smaller ticket services. I suck at selling, especially right now when my self esteem is at an all time low and if I didn't have a family I may have just checked out because of being tired of 20 years of failing to create a sustainable business.

Writing all this, I don't know what to say. I'm embarrassed and really ashamed I couldn't do better. I just made the best choice I knew how to, with my knowledge and information at the time in each case. My view is, I'm terrible at business, and I'm extremely lucky that I've even been able to survive to this point.

I appreciate the vulnerability. I empathize with this a lot as I have sort of a similar background in some ways.

Long story short, I made most money from Amazon, with my self-publishing business. Other than that, I've never had any real business success when I had to build something myself. All of my success is owed to Amazon (I also had some tiny successes with SEO).

Each business I tried that didn't rely on basing myself on someone else's platform just made me feel like a complete loser, extremely bad at entrepreneurship. I also suck at sales and this is why I've always defaulted to delegating it to someone else (like Amazon or Google).

MJ created a thread out of my rant some time ago. Maybe you'll find some good advice there for yourself as well:

GOLD! - MTF needs a slumpbuster: Too many swings, no hits.

I completely lost any belief in my business skills. I feel like all the success I have I owe just to luck and the right timing. Without it, I'd be nothing. These days, I'm just a cynical hypocrite. Friends ask me for business advice but honestly what the F*ck do I know? Just the shit I read...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

I don't have any practical advice as I'm still battling this myself and I can relate to the part about your self-esteem being at an all-time low. It's exactly the same for me, to the point I hate myself.

I'm sorry I can't be of more use but maybe that thread and some responses from other people will give you something useful.

 

[buildpath]

I appreciate the vulnerability. I empathize with this a lot as I have sort of a similar background in some ways.

Long story short, I made most money from Amazon, with my self-publishing business. Other than that, I've never had any real business success when I had to build something myself. All of my success is owed to Amazon (I also had some tiny successes with SEO).

Each business I tried that didn't rely on basing myself on someone else's platform just made me feel like a complete loser, extremely bad at entrepreneurship. I also suck at sales and this is why I've always defaulted to delegating it to someone else (like Amazon or Google).

MJ created a thread out of my rant some time ago. Maybe you'll find some good advice there for yourself as well:

GOLD! - MTF needs a slumpbuster: Too many swings, no hits.

I completely lost any belief in my business skills. I feel like all the success I have I owe just to luck and the right timing. Without it, I'd be nothing. These days, I'm just a cynical hypocrite. Friends ask me for business advice but honestly what the F*ck do I know? Just the shit I read...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

I don't have any practical advice as I'm still battling this myself and I can relate to the part about your self-esteem being at an all-time low. It's exactly the same for me, to the point I hate myself.

I'm sorry I can't be of more use but maybe that thread and some responses from other people will give you something useful.

Thanks - I actually read through a lot of your thread yesterday and felt like you definitely understand how I feel.

MJ is like "I don't get it, why don't you just scale up with your high value skills" - and in my mind, that's what I've been trying to do. I'm just ignorant I guess.

At least you didn't waste all of your money trying to build the thing to get you to the next level, like I did (because taking extreme risk was all I knew up to that point and I had been rewarded for that only)... I have no savings left and gotta figure something out. I've always somehow loved the pressure of having my back against the wall. But I am tired now and I need to make something work.

The most obvious thing to me is to try to find more $5k/mo clients. Or, now that I think of it, try breaking down the services I do for my $5k/mo client into distinct categories and create a brand for each of those, do outreach and see if i can get anywhere..

I can't really afford to lose weeks experimenting like that. But if i get any monthly clients, even $1k/mo, it's worth it and suddenly I CAN afford to continue..

 

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[Andy Black]

Skimmed the thread so may have missed some key points.

Think hard before you take that job. You'll have significantly less time and energy for your family never mind your own endeavors.

It sounds like you're wasting your time on Fiverr and you'd do better finding more clients like your $5k/mth one.

They don't have to be $5k/mth either. Imagine you had a handful at $3k/mth and the work was all similar? You'd inevitably build templates, processes, systems, etc to get more done faster.

Maybe you end up packaging some of your services and sell to different markets (maybe cheaper as a SaaS or productised service, or more expensive as a DFY "system" for even larger clients).

I consider this getting paid to build products you *know* businesses want.

Btw... Back in the day I got my €5-12k/mth IT contracting (albeit onsite) clients via recruitment agents. As a digital marketing consultant I get my higher value clients via connections on LinkedIn (not "content marketing" per se).

 

[buildpath]

Skimmed the thread so may have missed some key points.

Think hard before you take that job. You'll have significantly less time and energy for your family never mind your own endeavors.

It sounds like you're wasting your time on Fiverr and you'd do better finding more clients like your $5k/mth one.

They don't have to be $5k/mth either. Imagine you had a handful at $3k/mth and the work was all similar? You'd inevitably build templates, processes, systems, etc to get more done faster.

Maybe you end up packaging some of your services and sell to different markets (maybe cheaper as a SaaS or productised service, or more expensive as a DFY "system" for even larger clients).

I consider this getting paid to build products you *know* businesses want.

Btw... Back in the day I got my €5-12k/mth IT contracting (albeit onsite) clients via recruitment agents. As a digital marketing consultant I get my higher value clients via connections on LinkedIn (not "content marketing" per se).

Andy, quick question - how do I incenitivize the recruiters I reach out to? If they get their client to subscribe to my service, they lose a huge job placement commission

 

[Andy Black]

Andy, quick question - how do I incenitivize the recruiters I reach out to? If they get their client to subscribe to my service, they lose a huge job placement commission

When I was an IT contractor I was paid a daily rate and the recruiter was also paid a daily rate. I might be on €500/day and I guess they'd get at least €100/day (probably more). I've not used recruiters in any other capacity so can't really say. Maybe they can get paid a finders fee for finding you for their clients?

I always think of Jay Abraham's line of "Who already has your clients?"

Who or what organisations would have an interest in you finding and helping clients?

Is there (ideally expensive) paid software or tools that indicates businesses are already paying to solve problems you can solve? (I was an Oracle DBA for instance. Oracle is expensive so businesses using it usually have the budget for a team managing it.)

Who on LinkedIn has your ideal client following them?


I don't know if this thread is relevant to you. I was an onsite contractor and the process of finding and landing contracts was very similar to getting a permanent job.

HOT! - 10+ Years IT Contracting at €300-900/day (Learnings)

I was an IT contractor for over 10 years, earning €300-600/day (with the occasional €900/day short-term gigs). I've had a few AdWords jobs and contracts since 2009 (and am currently still in one long running one). In that time, I've learnt how to: Build relationships with recruitment agents...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[Bekit]

Hey, could it be that you're just in the wrong places looking for work?

All the copywriting communities I am a part of are always FULL of people asking for referrals for a good fractional IT/developer person.

It sounds like you'd fit that bill impressively well.

Reaching out to recruiters is going to result in a mismatched set of priorities.

Instead, why don't you try the following approaches to looking for leads to land another gig?

• Position yourself as a VA with a specialization in IT and coding and your tech stack. Join VA communities on facebook and so forth. All the other VAs will start referring you to their clients who need services like yours.
• Hang out in copywriting communities (e.g. Kevin Rogers Copy Chief) and describe what you do and I bet people will be HUNGRY to talk to you. (Copywriters are always painfully aware of the absence of two things if it affects their clients: Good designers and good developers. The lack of good talent in either of those two areas is always a hindrance because if the copywriter is suggesting that the client's funnel should work a particular way and nobody is there to implement that, the plan is not going to work as well as it should have, which can then make it look as if the copy was bad, when really it was the execution of the whole tech piece that failed.)
• Hang out in ecommerce groups and provide value (e.g. is there a BigCommerce facebook group or user-generated support area where you could answer questions and provide value?)
• Is there a way to identify sites that are already using BigCommerce? I don't know if there would be a way to reach out to business owners who are already running BigCommerce sites, but if you could (EDIT: I just googled "Bigcommerce examples" and came up with a ton of results, so it does look like this is possible), that would be the most effective cold outreach method if you were going to try that. I wouldn't conclude that "nobody is going to hire you from cold outreach." What if you were able to reach out to, say, the 500 biggest BigCommerce sites who are not yet using customized brand pages and send them something like this?

Subject: Custom brand templates for your BigCommerce site

Hey NAME,

Your BigCommerce site is still using the default content and layout on your brand pages. If you wanted to upgrade this but ran into obstacles, that's because the only way to add custom content and layout to brand pages is with custom brand templates. You need a unique html file for every brand. Nothing can be edited in BC admin.

Since you stock a lot of brands, I think your site could perform better if you had some customization.

I offer a custom-designed and coded brand template for Big Commerce that would allow you to generate content for each section of the brand page template, including the FAQ accordion.

I did this for XYZ client and they experienced ABC results after the update.

Implementing this for all the brand pages across your site would only be $XXXX. Others would likely quote you an hourly rate or a flat rate per page. I'm able to offer this for your entire site for this little because my proprietary process is extremely efficient.

Please let me know if you'd be interested in getting this done, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or show you samples of my work.

Sincerely,
Buildpath

 

[buildpath]

When I was an IT contractor I was paid a daily rate and the recruiter was also paid a daily rate. I might be on €500/day and I guess they'd get at least €100/day (probably more). I've not used recruiters in any other capacity so can't really say. Maybe they can get paid a finders fee for finding you for their clients?

I always think of Jay Abraham's line of "Who already has your clients?"

Who or what organisations would have an interest in you finding and helping clients?

Is there (ideally expensive) paid software or tools that indicates businesses are already paying to solve problems you can solve? (I was an Oracle DBA for instance. Oracle is expensive so businesses using it usually have the budget for a team managing it.)

Who on LinkedIn has your ideal client following them?


I don't know if this thread is relevant to you. I was an onsite contractor and the process of finding and landing contracts was very similar to getting a permanent job.

HOT! - 10+ Years IT Contracting at €300-900/day (Learnings)

I was an IT contractor for over 10 years, earning €300-600/day (with the occasional €900/day short-term gigs). I've had a few AdWords jobs and contracts since 2009 (and am currently still in one long running one). In that time, I've learnt how to: Build relationships with recruitment agents...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Thank you Andy. That does give me more clarity on it. I also will ask recruiters what would make it make sense to them to promote me.

Reminds me of a dev job trend I've seen - trashing the goal of full stack developer and trying to get a job as salesforce email developer, for example. Supposedly 100k+ coding html emails with some placeholders, etc.. vs expectation of full stack developer is that you have 10 years experience in frameworks that are 5 years old.

 

[Andy Black]

Hey, could it be that you're just in the wrong places looking for work?

All the copywriting communities I am a part of are always FULL of people asking for referrals for a good fractional IT/developer person.

It sounds like you'd fit that bill impressively well.

Reaching out to recruiters is going to result in a mismatched set of priorities.

Instead, why don't you try the following approaches to looking for leads to land another gig?

• Position yourself as a VA with a specialization in IT and coding and your tech stack. Join VA communities on facebook and so forth. All the other VAs will start referring you to their clients who need services like yours.
• Hang out in copywriting communities (e.g. Kevin Rogers Copy Chief) and describe what you do and I bet people will be HUNGRY to talk to you. (Copywriters are always painfully aware of the absence of two things if it affects their clients: Good designers and good developers. The lack of good talent in either of those two areas is always a hindrance because if the copywriter is suggesting that the client's funnel should work a particular way and nobody is there to implement that, the plan is not going to work as well as it should have, which can then make it look as if the copy was bad, when really it was the execution of the whole tech piece that failed.)
• Hang out in ecommerce groups and provide value (e.g. is there a BigCommerce facebook group or user-generated support area where you could answer questions and provide value?)
• Is there a way to identify sites that are already using BigCommerce? I don't know if there would be a way to reach out to business owners who are already running BigCommerce sites, but if you could (EDIT: I just googled "Bigcommerce examples" and came up with a ton of results, so it does look like this is possible), that would be the most effective cold outreach method if you were going to try that. I wouldn't conclude that "nobody is going to hire you from cold outreach." What if you were able to reach out to, say, the 500 biggest BigCommerce sites who are not yet using customized brand pages and send them something like this?

Subject: Custom brand templates for your BigCommerce site

Hey NAME,

Your BigCommerce site is still using the default content and layout on your brand pages. If you wanted to upgrade this but ran into obstacles, that's because the only way to add custom content and layout to brand pages is with custom brand templates. You need a unique html file for every brand. Nothing can be edited in BC admin.

Since you stock a lot of brands, I think your site could perform better if you had some customization.

I offer a custom-designed and coded brand template for Big Commerce that would allow you to generate content for each section of the brand page template, including the FAQ accordion.

I did this for XYZ client and they experienced ABC results after the update.

Implementing this for all the brand pages across your site would only be $XXXX. Others would likely quote you an hourly rate or a flat rate per page. I'm able to offer this for your entire site for this little because my proprietary process is extremely efficient.

Please let me know if you'd be interested in getting this done, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or show you samples of my work.

Sincerely,
Buildpath

Love this. It's that "Who already has your clients?" again. Copywriters have clients who need developers. Google Ads consultants have clients who need developers. Etc.

Also, being a peer in groups and then getting invited into groups of your target market by group owners is what I recommend a lot. I talked about it here:

MARKETING - SIDE HUSTLE - [Workshop Replay] Selling Google Ads as a Service

Here's a presentation about how I started and am building a business that provides Google Ads as a service to other businesses. I did it for @Fox 's paid web design group last year and he's kindly allowed me to share it. It should also help people starting other businesses. Let me know what...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[buildpath]

Hey, could it be that you're just in the wrong places looking for work?

All the copywriting communities I am a part of are always FULL of people asking for referrals for a good fractional IT/developer person.

It sounds like you'd fit that bill impressively well.

Reaching out to recruiters is going to result in a mismatched set of priorities.

Instead, why don't you try the following approaches to looking for leads to land another gig?

• Position yourself as a VA with a specialization in IT and coding and your tech stack. Join VA communities on facebook and so forth. All the other VAs will start referring you to their clients who need services like yours.
• Hang out in copywriting communities (e.g. Kevin Rogers Copy Chief) and describe what you do and I bet people will be HUNGRY to talk to you. (Copywriters are always painfully aware of the absence of two things if it affects their clients: Good designers and good developers. The lack of good talent in either of those two areas is always a hindrance because if the copywriter is suggesting that the client's funnel should work a particular way and nobody is there to implement that, the plan is not going to work as well as it should have, which can then make it look as if the copy was bad, when really it was the execution of the whole tech piece that failed.)
• Hang out in ecommerce groups and provide value (e.g. is there a BigCommerce facebook group or user-generated support area where you could answer questions and provide value?)
• Is there a way to identify sites that are already using BigCommerce? I don't know if there would be a way to reach out to business owners who are already running BigCommerce sites, but if you could (EDIT: I just googled "Bigcommerce examples" and came up with a ton of results, so it does look like this is possible), that would be the most effective cold outreach method if you were going to try that. I wouldn't conclude that "nobody is going to hire you from cold outreach." What if you were able to reach out to, say, the 500 biggest BigCommerce sites who are not yet using customized brand pages and send them something like this?

Subject: Custom brand templates for your BigCommerce site

Hey NAME,

Your BigCommerce site is still using the default content and layout on your brand pages. If you wanted to upgrade this but ran into obstacles, that's because the only way to add custom content and layout to brand pages is with custom brand templates. You need a unique html file for every brand. Nothing can be edited in BC admin.

Since you stock a lot of brands, I think your site could perform better if you had some customization.

I offer a custom-designed and coded brand template for Big Commerce that would allow you to generate content for each section of the brand page template, including the FAQ accordion.

I did this for XYZ client and they experienced ABC results after the update.

Implementing this for all the brand pages across your site would only be $XXXX. Others would likely quote you an hourly rate or a flat rate per page. I'm able to offer this for your entire site for this little because my proprietary process is extremely efficient.

Please let me know if you'd be interested in getting this done, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or show you samples of my work.

Sincerely,
Buildpath

Bekit that is incredible! Getting contacts for outreach is not a problem. I have ListKit with some credits still on my account, and I can target BigCommerce sites with outreach via Instantly.

This will be my first priority to try out.

Regarding contacting recruiters, yeah the mismatched priorities had me concerned. Do you think it's still worth a try though?

Regarding joining copywriting communities: I had not thought of this. I did at least recently join some SEO communities with the goal of getting users and feedback on my SaaS. But the copywriting is a good idea. Companies who can afford to hire a copywriter are at least not the bottom of the barrel people who make up most of FIverr inquiries.

So for now, here are priorities:

1. BigCommerce Custom brand pages outreach
2. Join copywriting communities
3. Outreach to recruiters

 

[buildpath]

Love this. It's that "Who already has your clients?" again. Copywriters have clients who need developers. Google Ads consultants have clients who need developers. Etc.

Also, being a peer in groups and then getting invited into groups of your target market by group owners is what I recommend a lot. I talked about it here:

MARKETING - SIDE HUSTLE - [Workshop Replay] Selling Google Ads as a Service

Here's a presentation about how I started and am building a business that provides Google Ads as a service to other businesses. I did it for @Fox 's paid web design group last year and he's kindly allowed me to share it. It should also help people starting other businesses. Let me know what...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

"being a peer in groups and then getting invited into groups of your target market by group owners is what I recommend a lot."

I am definitely reading this/watching your video after the kids get to sleep.

One thing I would like to point out is that over the last 20 years, one of my biggest drivers besides trying to make money was that I wanted to do it invisibly, and without having clients because I thought it would be a nightmare. Through doing dev work for clients since late 2022, and choosing not to work with those who give me a bad gut feeling, I have discovered I really enjoy the problem solving for clients. Giving them a result they wanted feels great. I worked hard, I got to do something fun (code and some design) and I get recognition and I see it helped my client. I also get to see inside many different businesses instead of staying isolated in my own tiny world of my own projects. I've definitely learned a lot.

 

[Choate]

Hard, hard pass on the job. Not a chance. You don't want it and you know you don't want it, it sounds like your wife is trying to pressure you into it. If she also has her own business and clients, what's the issue with insurance? Why doesn't she take the job?

As others have alluded to, and you've ignored thus far, it sounds like you have a cost of living problem. With your wife pressuring you to get another job and make even more money, I bet this holds true. Sure, you've got some survivable interest rate business debt you can work down, but something isn't adding up.

You have nearly $200k in income by yourself while also taking care of the kids and your wife also has a business. Why are you considering giving this up for a $70k/year job, forcing your wife to readjust her own business and take over child care?

- $20,400 on my loan at 3.75%, and am paying $500/mo on that
- $10k on a business card
- $20k on a business card with 0% APR until 2025

Ok, you owe $50k.

My advice is going to be a little bit different from everyone else in the thread. Reading your posts, I'm going to take a guess that you're overly stressed over little things. Your mind keeps racing to the latest Google update, your business debt, the pressure from your wife. Stress is your issue right now, not money. Adding in a 9-5 with 2 hours of driving is not going to turn your life around or alleviate you of this stress nor help you towards your long-term goals.

Basically, you've let your hands off the ship's wheel and rather than grabbing that motherfcker and righting the ship you want to step down. You feel in over your head. Before you go making any changes like officially joining the slowlane for the first time, go take a long 4-6 hour hike and slow everything down.

 

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[Andy Black]

You feel in over your head. Before you go making any changes like officially joining the slowlane for the first time, go take a long 4-6 hour hike and slow everything down.

Ah yes. Very good points. I should have picked up on that.

Erm... yet another video that might help. I'm reminded of it by your great advice to take a walk.

MINDSET - A message to a friend who's overwhelmed and worried

There's a few threads in here of people getting overwhelmed and worried. I recorded a private message a little while back to a friend in response to his hair-raising story here. He's ok me sharing it. Maybe it will help? What's your takeaways and thoughts? What will you do different from...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[BizyDad]

Bekit that is incredible! Getting contacts for outreach is not a problem. I have ListKit with some credits still on my account, and I can target BigCommerce sites with outreach via Instantly.

This will be my first priority to try out.

Regarding contacting recruiters, yeah the mismatched priorities had me concerned. Do you think it's still worth a try though?

Regarding joining copywriting communities: I had not thought of this. I did at least recently join some SEO communities with the goal of getting users and feedback on my SaaS. But the copywriting is a good idea. Companies who can afford to hire a copywriter are at least not the bottom of the barrel people who make up most of FIverr inquiries.

So for now, here are priorities:

1. BigCommerce Custom brand pages outreach
2. Join copywriting communities
3. Outreach to recruiters

I know it's only been a day, but I'm wondering if you've made any progress here.

Also, the last three bigcommerce development companies I've worked with have not lived up to expectations. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to look at our site and make some suggestions on what you could do to improve our conversion rate?

If you're interested, DM me please.