I’m one of your long-time lurkers and I thought to share my take.

I always have an open mind when it comes to planning. I don’t think I even plan that much at all. LOL.

Seriously, I’ve always thought that I only want to be a doctor. But when the Internet called me to explore other opportunities, I didn’t try to be too stiff about it and went with the flow to eventually become a budding virtual assistant.

Now after learning about how this business enables anyone to be mobile and travel and with inspiration from this blog http://www.locationindependent.com/blog, I’m now planning to explore not just the Internet opportunities but the world, too.

However, that’s now one of my long-term goals and this post of yours just spurred the idea to re-assess my plans and check my medium term plans.

I’m with Teaching Sells, too. For me I’m pretty sure it’s what I want to do in the short, medium and long term. Yes, I think I’ve found what I want to do, after looking for what seems the longest time.

Maybe you’ve spotted this already, but one business model that Brian and Tony advocate, and is the one they adopted for Teaching Sells, is that of launching the learning site with just a portion of the content developed. Chris touched on that in his reply above. Do you think that would work for you? Obviously it means that you can start earning money much quicker than you would if you had to invest all the time up front developing the teaching materials.

I don’t think that is what I would like to do myself, but it does work as Teaching Sells proves.

But whatever you do, the very best wishes.

Bill

I came here from my sisters blog http://www.workathomemomrevolution.blogspot.com , she also spends a lot of time on her blog, probably more than she would like. She has a link to this page in a blog post, I just had to come and read a little.

My blog has also taken over my life, but you know….. I don’t care! During the last 6 months I have taught myself some html, xhtml and javascript. For a non code geek, I am rather proud of myself;) I have also connected with other photographers around the globe. I hope to successfully monetize my site with the best Pro Photography related products I can find, but while I am waiting for the big bucks to roll in, I have basically turned my blog into my main portal to my photography business website. It has given me a legitimate reason to continue, even with the obvious lack of income generated directly from the blog.

Check it out at http://www.digitaldilemmas.blogspot.com, you can even call me in North Carolina to discuss the pitfalls and joys of self employment. My numbers on the site.

Best of luck,

Ed Morgan

I think that the great thing about your blog and the reason it reaches so many people is that it voices what so so many are thinking and you seem to have an uncanny knack to resonate with your peers.

Thanks to you, I am now following the 30 Day Challenge as I had wanted to do the Teaching Sells course but, frankly couldn’t spare the money. However, what I understand from what I’ve read there is that the aim is to prepare the project while it’s in progress.

This actually makes a lot of sense – I have been an English teacher here in Spain for the last 15 years, and now I want to take that to a new dimension by using the internet to be able to work from home and do what I do in a more specific way (while exploring other projects). In January I will be launching a new service for advanced learners which uses Skype, google docs, video and audio podcasts etc to address the specific needs of EACH individual student. I am going to put a limit of 10 students per 3 month course but this course can only happen “on the go” as it will be (as all teaching) an interaction between students and teacher.

This model has also been used by Jason Van Orden at Internet Business Mastery and I think you could apply it right now to your gaming project. Which gaming nut wouldn’t love the opportunity to actually particpate in the development of what they love?

Maybe that would be the way for you to make a living whilst doing what you love – even if it would mean that we would lose your blog.

Hope it all works out for you.

@Mark, well the career change is hopefully temporary. I still want to write software, but just my won software, rather than somebody else’s.

@Kexster, I have a post about that topic scheduled for next week.

@Mike, I assume you mean ProBlogger, not ShoeMoney – that one would be new to me heh. See, I can’t give up because I have burnt my bridges behind me. I now have no choice but to continue on.

@Lissie, if I was worried about money I never would have quit my job. It was a perfectly good job. I quit so that I would have all my time available to pursue my dreams. I have no doubt in my mind that I will earn all the money I need in time.

@What sells, no freelance is not my thing. I simply want to develop my own assets – not somebody else’s. I am very clear on that point. I will not compromise my goals and plans to make a quick buck.

I do agree with you that the traffic generation skills you have built will come in handy. No matter what type of online business you plan to build, traffic needs to come first.

I don’t know if this will work for you, but perhaps you could look at doing some part time freelance work, or even look for jobs over Elance.com or Guru.com. At least, you’d have SOME income coming in while you build your online business. However, I also know that doing freelance work CAN be pretty time consuming. Guess we just have to bounce back on proper time management.

Anyways, I don’t always suggest making money online since the standards have been brought up so high that it is hard to obtain without a publicity stunt. Seeing that Shoemoney posted about you, you received over 200 subscribers, but there’s a WHAT IF? situation.

A lot of people give up after seeing there is no hope, but that is because people only view blogs that have “high RSS feed counts”.

-Mike

I admire your courage in quitting a paying job to go out on your own. But, I would not recommend that decision to others. I have heard that when you start a new business you decide how much money it will bring in each month. Then determine how many months it will take to reach your goal amount. Then multiply that amount of months by 3. You should have enough in the bank (or under the mattress) to tide you over until that 18 month or 36 month mark where you are living on your income from the new business.

But, hey that is just a lesson I learned 22 years ago when I tried to go into business with $2,000 in the bank. If only I knew then what I know now. Haha.

Best of luck to you. I am rooting for you to succeed. Yay!

More power to you!

i agree with you. i am still new in this, so i will see in a few months time if it is worth spending 60% of my time here..lol,yes, blogging can be addictive

Which leads me to my pet hate: the idea that all those business plans will turn out. They don’t (maybe in really established industries and markets, but that sure ain’t blogging). I find them useful to clarify my thinking and sort out priorities. A book from a saner perspective is Start Small Finish Big by one of the guys who started Subway.

My big challenge at the moment is figuring out a niche. So I’m a long way from successful monetization. No doubt I have much more learning and flexing to do.

I did say I thought it was a bit off on the analysis so maybe only complete “pro” author comments are allowed. It was the first time I had visited that site, guess my comment wasn’t good enough :)

@Kris, I can’t do web design to save my life heh! And I would never do freelance – that’s worse than having a day job, because you not only work for somebody else but you’re directly accountable to them. No thanks :)

My aim is to generate streams of income that can eventually be outsourced to become more passive. Blogging isn’t one of those obviously but as I said in the post, the blog was never meant to be a main income stream. It’s just something I enjoy.

@Lea, yes indeed, I do have very strong visions of what I want and don’t want to do. I get a lot of people making suggestions as to what I ’should’ do and they mean nothing to me if they do not take me closer to my overall goals.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote the title of this post…you just never know what’s going to come along when you decide to take some sort of action and so whilst having an overall vision to guide you is important…the interim goals and the route you take to get there, need to be flexible enough to change.

I had a similar experience this year when we decided to leave the UK and work/travel permanently. I already had a full time coaching business but decided to start a blog about what we were doing. Now, 9 months later, that blog is starting to take up more and more of my time – and it seems I’ve hit upon something that appeals to far more people than my “proper” business. The challenge now is monetising this – aside from the book I wrote about it – and working out how to “e-myth” it and turn it into a real business.

BTW – Leo’s ZTD book is excellent!…and there’s an affiliate program so a potential little money earner for you right there :-)

my advice to you:

short term: since you’re already a programmer, brush up on your web design and web programming skills.

medium term: start freelancing as a web designer. there are tons of people who are ready to pay for this kind of work. i’d have been a freelancer myself if it wasn’t for me doing rather well in my postgraduate degree and subsequently landing myself a pretty good job. a couple of my friends who decided to freelance are so swamped with orders that they keep begging me to take some time off and help them out on weekends (with a generous cut of the profits too)

long term: once you’re established and earning well, you can probably set aside more time for blogging. plus, as a web designer, you’ll have had a lot more exposure to a lot more things web.

remember, freelancing isn’t exactly the same as working for someone. you’re free to set timelines based on how many hours you want to put in daily. you can work at whatever time of day you feel like. you can turn work down if you find your other interests are taking too much of a hit.

i say, give it a shot.

Your story is very similar to mine. I was in high tech for lots of years (25+) and I’m only 43! I finally burnt out and decided to follow my heart and passion and do a blog about Math. Like you I quit my job without another job. That’s how WildAboutMath was born.

I’m living from my savings.

I’ve been at this seriously for only a couple of weeks now and I’m not at the monetization phase but I understand all about spending more time than you think on your blog. And I understand about wondering where your income is going to come from.

Have you considered technical writing as a way to earn some money. I’m doing some of that now, and some Math tutoring too.

Best wishes to your success. I’m cheering you on.

Sol

I don’t spend a lot of time blogging now. I also read less blog but I love your blog though…alway something quality and beneficial to read :-)

Keep us posted with your progress!

And yes Rosalind’s posts was a bit off the mark. I did leave a comment to clarify but it was deleted!

@Jeff, there were lots of specific mistakes that I made with the early niches. I still think the concept is solid, but my implementation wasn’t. I’m trying to learn from those mistakes as I move forward.

@Mike, no not yet – I still need to monetize in some way first heh :)

@Josh, I think many bloggers are trying to make money *just* with their blogs, which is pretty tough. I’ve always wanted to have many income streams.

@Nancy, I would hate to win the lottery. It would make all my efforts seem pointless. I want to earn my money and know that everything I have is because I worked for it. I don’t do the lottery :)

@Jacky, one of the niches simply had no money in it and two of them were extremely difficult to write for. I’m not going to work at something for an entire year when I’ve spotted a glaring mistake within a few weeks. Always know when to cut your losses and start over.

I realise the overall process takes time, but I won’t work blindly on one single idea for the entire time. Test test test, keep what works, chuck what doesn’t.

@Kate, the only social media sites I use now are Sphinn and StumbleUpon. Sites like Digg just aren’t relevant for this blog.

However, it was while stumbling that I found this blog, you should monetize it Caroline, it seems to have a healthy readership and the content is really useful for those of us who don’t have your software skills.

PS, I’ve also just joined the Teaching Sells course. It’s not finding a niche that is the challenge, but choosing between all the ideas.

PPS: I already wandered why you weren’t monetising this blog with so many RSS-readers and links even from problogger, and pagerank 4 …

I think you are right in that it is important to be flexible. You’re never going to know what is going to work, what you are going to enjoy most and how much time it is going to take. There are hundreds of sites out there telling you it is so easy to make money blogging, but the reality of it is that it isn’t that easy at all! So while we work to achieve problogger status, there has got to be something bringing the mortgage money in in the meantime…

I was marketing online for 2 years before I started blogging so I guess that causes my train of thought to be different, but I’ve been noticing lately MANY bloggers concentrate solely on their blog.

One can be very successful focusing on only one thing, but when it comes to IM, you really should diversify yourself.

Multiple streams of recurring income is what it’s all about and I believe you have one of the more solid plans of those who are just starting in IM.

Maybe there is some IM rule-of-thumb about when you declare an effort a failure, but I wouldn’t think that a month or two with your niche sites is long enough to let them “work” before marking them as failures.

Your writings have been info-filled and inspiring. I have found the discussions about what you are doing (like from the site you referenced above) to be enlightening as well. Some folks have a hard time grasping the concept of a site directed more to a peer audience rather than a site that is trying to establish the site’s author as an authority or an expert.

To me the expert site usually has that bottom line intent of just trying to sell me something … maybe a bit of teaser info, but I really need to take the class or buy the book or just send money!

I’m rambling … I need to get back to the day job … grumble, grumble, grumble!

Jeff

I think someone over there may have misinterpreted your blog a little, but what do I know?

I think you have done a great job with it so far. I have been spending A LOT of time on my blog and haven’t earned a dime either. It isn’t the “first” thing you do, first you have to develop a good product. Scott

I guess trying to find a balance is most important, but probably the hardest thing to do. Scott