Feb 2013 - I've Got Money And I've Got Business Ideas

Passive Income In February 2013: $45 
Costs: $30

Another great month is behind. My course investments are starting to pay off.

Both SBI! and 30x500 have been winner's choices for me. If you don't know these courses, there's more info in my Resources Page.

Site-Build-It!

Most of the money in February came from my SBI! site. The one I've neglected since 30x500 started.

The SBI! does say that it takes about half a year to make any money with it. Even though I've completed only 8/10 of this course, it has still kept its promises.

My site has only 16 articles and I've done no link-building for a long time.

For some reason unknown to me, I jumped up in Google ranks 2 weeks ago. I now have 1500 unique visitors per month and several of my long tail keywords rank in the first page.

The best thing is that these new visitors don't bother mailing me before they buy. So I'm concentrating on 30x500 and just watching the money flow in.

Admittedly, this stream is small and it's potential is not very big. But I'm proud of every penny I make online and SBI! was a good learning experience that prepared me for 30x500.

30x500

Business ideas are flowing in, thanks to 30x500 process. During the last couple of weeks, I've had several good business ideas. The best thing about these ideas is that there is a high probability people want these products and they are willing to pay for them.

I have not yet selected the final business idea, but I've selected my audience and my business "theme":

I'm going to help bootstrapped micro-businesses with their financial and accounting problems.

I had "forgotten" that I have BBA and several years of experience in small biz accounting. Truth to be told, I didn't think those skills would be of much use - except for taking care of my own finances. Fortunately, 30x500 dig them up and pointed out that small businesses often need help in that area.

I have to refresh my old skills so I'll not be able to start by creating a SaaS as a hoped. But I'll be happy to start by creating info-products for this awesome audience. That will also show me what the demand for extra services really is.

I'm looking forward to what happens in next month. I hope you had a good biz month too!

Jan 2013 - My First Positive Month!

Passive Income In January 2013: $30.60
Costs: $30

Time to celebrate again! SBI is finally paying for itself.

To tell the truth, AdFly and Adsense helped a little, but most of the money came from SBI. If you don't know what SBI (SiteBuildIt) is, take a look at my Resources page.

I'm laughing at the 60 cents I earned, but at the same time I'm pretty proud of it.

The best thing about this SBI income is that it shows me a hint of the site's potential. I've got just a fraction of the possible traffic, but it is enough to see that my conversion rate is better than I hoped for.

The only monetization option I'm using is affiliate marketing. I still haven't studied the days 8-10 of SBI so I don't have, for example, mailing lists in my use yet. I see potential in this site if I can get back my motivation to work on it again. The site would definitely benefit from getting more back-links, a mailing list and a couple of more articles.

I also really enjoy the fact that I've just let it be for couple of months already and it's still doing just fine and getting more traffic every month.

To Move Or Not To Move

I have been pondering if I want to move my SBI! site to external hosting. If I would move my site away from SBI!, I could save on the hosting  costs. But I have finally decided against it.

Last month I learned about the real expenses for making business online. That made me realise I'm still a cheapskate, trying to save in a wrong place. I understand the concept of needing to spend money to earn money, it's just hard to actually implement it.

If I think only about the hosting, yes, I could pinch some pennies. But hosting (with unlimited traffic!) is not the only thing SBI offers. I get free mailing lists, pretty nice statistics, forum etc. The value I get is well over $30, even if the tools are a bit outdated and clumsy. Plus, I'd need to waste time to actually move the site.

So, I got reasonable and decided to keep my SBI! site where it is. I rather try to inspire myself to work  for it again to get couple of more sales in per month in order to make it continue to pay for itself.

Year 2012 In Review

December 2012 saw me earning $5.5 and paying $30. My best month this far was August, with $25 incoming.

My total passive income this year was $85 - and I worked pretty hard to get it. Compared to my goals, I already claimed failure in October.

Let's say it out loud - I don't have a business yet. In fact, I've spent $650 on this fine "hobby" of mine. And that's NOT counting $2.500 I spent on 30x500.

But Oh Boy, Have I Learned!

I must admit I had no idea what I was about to do when I started in May. I saw only a fraction of the opportunities possible and I was not effective in processing information. Still, I learned a ton.

• I learned web style article writing
• I learned about different ways to make money online
• I learned how to do keyword analysis
• I learned different ways to get traffic
• I learned the process of publishing eBooks for Kindle
• I learned a new programming language
• I learned how to install new habits (that get stuff done)
• I learned how to mine data in the internet 
• I learned how to create mailing lists
• I learned how reversing pains and creating value is what sells
• I learned all business starts from exchange - from the audience 

I Have Gained A Lot Too

Although I did not proceed with the speed I hoped for, I still created and published things. I'm grateful for everything I've achieved this year.

• I created my first web app (even though it never saw daylight)
• I've met wonderful people through this blog
• I belong to a community of like-minded people (in 30x500)
• I have been given a donation
• I have my SBI site with over 700 visitors per month
• I still keep getting YouTube subscribers for the programming video I made
• I have this blog, with 1.300 visits per month
• I have grown my favorite hobby blog to 15.000 visitors per month
• I feel great for creating stuff people like

Best Of All, I'm Free!

Actually, my husband resigned last month so we are both free now. And we are enjoying it!

I haven't regretted resigning for a second. Fortunately for us, we are minimalists. No car, no TV and small expenses. That means we don't struggle financially for a while yet.

This year, we saw the Geiranger Fjord in Norway and Piemonte hills in the Italy, riding though the scenery with our motorcycle. I've again found out I love slow travel. We've met wonderful people on our travels. 

I was pretty amazed to realize how my mindset has started to change with the freedom. The truth is, nothing prevented me from pursuing my goals before. This year, I have not done anything I could not have done while I was working. But I did not. I had a slave mindset - a worker mindset. It will still take me some time to fully grow to the entrepreneur mindset, but I can see myself getting there.

I wish you all happy new year 2013! 
Let's make this year unforgettable!

November 2012 Status Report

Yay! A new income stream finally opened up. 30x500 is proceeding in full speed too.


Passive income: $15

I've got the first affiliate sale from my SiteBuildIt! site.

I have been waiting this for several months already. I've had problems getting quality back-links to my site. There just doesn't seem to be quality sites about this subject and I could not come up with related sites either. I have managed to crank up at least one article that people really like and I've gotten some natural back-links to it. Now I have 3 articles that rank into first two pages in several search engines. It's a start, but I'd still need a lot more traffic.

I can see from the statistics that people are going through my Call-To-Action as I intended, but most of them are coming through direct links. They come from sites where lots of people already own the product that I recommend.

I also got some income from Adsense and AdFly.    


Costs: $30

The costs include just the SiteBuildIt! monthly payment. So even though I've got a sale, I'm still negative what comes to SBI.

I've been thinking whether I should move my site elsewhere to save in the costs. I'm almost done with the lessons and beyond that I'll just get hosting, statistics and tools.

I'm not too happy with the tools and the templates, they seem pretty outdated and clumsy to me. But, they provide features I would otherwise need to use several tools for. Hosting is really trouble-free and does not have any limits. Also, I like the statistics they provide. The information is in much nicer format than I can get from Google Analytics.

In any case, I feel SBI course is worth more than I've yet paid in so I'm not in a hurry with the possible move.


30x500

I can honestly say that getting into 30x500 is the best thing I've done since resigning. Not only is it teaching a process for creating predictable success, it does its best to ensure that people are really learning it.

Plus, I think it has actually already saved its price. How? By telling me that the product idea I was going to implement was targeted to a niche that I cannot reach online. Or more accurately, when they are online they are not interested in hearing about products that would ease up their (offline) business.

Retrospective Autumn 2012

I claimed failure in my October status report. It is time for retrospective.

I have 18 people in my Other Stream Creators blog list. 14 of them are past their deadlines. How are they doing?


Successes (or nearly successes) 

Passive Incoming is almost at her $800 per month goal. She has no deadline date. Her last reported month was nearly $700. She writes small eBooks that she sells at Amazon. As she did not have any previous work to build on, this is an amazing result.

Melissa Rachel Black reached her $50 per month goal by drawing vector illustrations. In addition, she has a new source of active income by drawing commission illustrations.

Pierre Bastien did not reach his original $300 goal and reported that as a failure. I still wanted to list him here, since he got over $150 in September. That is a reasonable bunch of cash - definitely worth mentioning.

Also, Pierre was the only "failed"-reporter that I could find!


What About Everyone Else? 

The other 11 people have not written any reports that I could easily find. I assume those people just did not make it and did not bother to report it. Some of them have stopped blogging altogether. One of them has even removed the blog post where his goal was published.


So, Why Did I Fail?

At first, I went through a set of "make believe explanations" in my head. I would have probably continued to believe in them, but then came the time to write this report.

I did not really fail because:

• I was out of alignment with my goal 
• My goal was not phrased in the most motivating way 
• I chose a slow way to make passive income 
• I did not work from my strengths 
• I had no concrete idea how to get to my goal

I failed because I did not provide enough value.

I spent most of my time learning things. The people who succeeded in the challenge were busy publishing valuable stuff. Stuff someone was happy to pay for.

I did publish things... but what is out there is not much. I have about 15 articles in my SBI! site. I have this blog. I planned on creating 2 new passive income streams before Christmas. I have one new stream, and it is *tiny*. The fact that I'm getting at least something tells that my creations are valuable to someone.

Instead of publishing things, I learned things. What I have learned has a huge value to me - but against my goal that work is totally invisible. If I want to reach any monetary goals, I need to start publishing stuff. I need to quiet down my inner self-critic and just do it.

The big question that rises from what I have learned from this passive income challenge is: How do I know (in advance) what people want to buy?

The methods I have learned for finding out niches and evaluating their "profitability" seem to me like first steps to finding an audience to deal with. But my passive-income puzzle is still missing some pieces. I do hope 30x500 delivers them.

In the meantime, I continue to show up.

October 2012 Status Report

Passive Income In October 2012
$5

I'm getting just a trickle of pennies from AdFly, Adsense and SiteBuildIt!


Costs In October 2012
$60

I'm happy to see the costs coming down. I'm still paying SiteBuildIt! monthly and plan to continue with it. I spent the other $30 to books. I needed those as a study material for my own book.


I can't build a 1000€ passive income stream by Christmas 2012

You may call me an early quitter if you want, but I've stopped believing my current goal is reachable to me. That is my subjective reality. I don't feel like I'd be quitting, I feel like I'm moving on.

Due to the collaborative 30x500 prep work I'm beginning to see where I really stand. When I started this project I thought I knew a lot about passive income. Now I know I knew very little.

My approach has been far from optimal. Actually, my approach was like shooting into the dark, hoping to hit something. Thanks to 30x500 I'm seeing that now and I believe it can be changed. But realizing all the strategic mistakes I've made has eaten up the motivation to work.

I don't want to publish new products with my faulty process. 

So, I've been procrastinating. I've tried to push myself to work on my project, but the motivation is gone. I'm going to quit procrastinating now and give myself a permission to NOT work on this project.

I've written over 20 pages for my book, but publishing it does not seem like a smart thing to do. Not now.

I have been mulling over this a lot. On the other hand I feel I should "just do it", but from my new viewpoint I'd be publishing a dead baby. Everything is an experience, but nothing happens without a motivation.


What next?

I still love SiteBuildIt! and my blogs - I'm not going to abandon them. I'm going to continue the pursuit for increasing my passive income - even though this project has made me realize that building passive income takes a lot of work.

30x500 starts next week and I'm targeting to be the next star student.

I'll be updating the stats until the old goal is due and then I'll put up a new goal. For now, just studying and doing 30x500 is enough. Of course I'd love to start increasing my income right away, but there is some learning to do first.

I'll also continue with SiteBuildIt. I kinda see SBI! compatible with 30x500 base ideology. In it you just don't go to the "Customer Safari" to search for your audience. Instead, you'll express your own worldview and attract a compatible audience over the first year or two. No wonder it takes time to earn with that approach! Yet, the approach is solid and the course is really useful. My traffic is in solid increase and I enjoy having the site. I'm still at day 8. Two more to go!

I'll continue posting on the topics of passive income and product building as I stumble to interesting things. Thanks for helping me with this project!

September Status Report (Week 20)

Time for the monthly report!


Passive Income In September 2012 
$5

 Oops. I did not get anything from SiteBuildIt! this month and it looks like my passive income went back to what it was before. Adsense and AdFly helped me to get at least something.

I did get an Amazon affiliate sale from my SiteBuildIt! site, but it was an item that was delivered by external seller - so I guess I don't get any pennies from that. But that is a beginning... It is my first affiliate sale from that site. I wish I'll soon get sales for my main product that has higher commissions.


Costs In September 2012 
$127

Costs include my last payment to Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0. I spent $400 dollars in it, but somehow my book is not out yet.

Costs also include my monthly payment to SiteBuildIt!.

I did not include $2.450 for 30x500. Why? Because it was not paid from the project budget and it starts at November, too late to bring in anything before Christmas. I'll keep it separately in the status page.


Time Is Getting Short

After I got back from my vacation, I have been working on trying to get back-links to my SiteBuildIt! site. It has been more tricky than I expected. I'm also adding content to the site all the time. I have a nice trickle of traffic going on there, but I need more.

I think that site has potential to earn me 1.000 € per month, but I'd need some kind of a traffic miracle to get it by Christmas.

The travel book that I planned is going to get delayed. We decided to write it together with my husband later on.

I have another book idea that is connected to my SiteBuildIt! site. I'm going to roll that out, hoping it will sell AND bring traffic to my SiteBuildIt! site. If the book breaks through, I have some chance of getting to my goal.

I'm not going to stress about it. Money is important, but I'm building a business here. I am still confident that I'll reach my monetary goal - eventually.

I have already broken the SiteBuildIt! rules on monetizing, with hopes that I'd get some pennies from my site earlier. I hope that was not a bad decision. But in general I'm trying to not let the upcoming deadline affect my decisions on what I should do. I want to create quality content.

August 2012 Status Report (Week 16)

Hi there! I'm still on vacation, but I wanted to give you the August status anyway.

Freckle says I've spent 63 hours on my passive income project in August. That is almost as much as in previous month, even though I've worked only couple of hours during the last 2 weeks.

Passive Income In August 2012:
$25

Income is mostly coming from affiliate sales and AdFly.

This was a happy surprise to me, since my last month's income included a $10 donation. I was also expecting my vacation to show a bit, but it looks like this income really is passive.

Granted, I messed up and accidentally had my own affiliate cookie on when I bought new products for trying them out. I did report that, but they said I can just keep those pennies.

Costs In August 2012:
-$227

Costs include the monthly payment to Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0 and SiteBuildIt!

It also includes $100 worth of products that I wanted to test. As said, I messed up with the purchase. I had my own affiliate cookie on. Even though I got to keep the money, I saw that the payment for those products was much lower than the main product. I also did not check the tax limit and ended up paying some taxes, which made the products even more expensive.

I could have easily avoided this cost, but I wanted to try out those products.


Downsides

Even though my passive income grew again, I also saw the dark side of the project this month.

My SBI site have been up for over a month already and I've not yet earned a penny from it. That was expected as the monetization is not plugged in yet. I've written a handful of nice articles that I'm proud of, but I'm impatient right now. I'd like to monetize, but the next thing to do will be to start getting some backlinks to my site. I hate the tortoise speed of SBI!

I bought $100 worth of products, but I did not like them enough to recommend them. That was really sad, since the main product is excellent. Another downside is that the experience on these products varies from person to person. They were not suitable for me, but someone might still like them a lot. However, as things are, I cannot recommend them myself. So I practically just lost the money to try them out. I could get some of it back though.

I've also got some negative feedback on my project. I've got it from my friends and relatives offline and online, by getting banned. I'll be telling you more about that later. 


Conclusion

Even though I've seen some drawbacks this months, they have all been mental. I'm glad to see that my passive income is still going up.

I've have great fun with my project and I'm not going to stop just because there have been some obstacles in the road.

I'll continue enjoying my vacation about two weeks or so. But after that I'll be back in business!

Week 13 - Creating Site Content

Here is my Freckle pulse from last week:

That is 25 hours. Most of it was content creation for my new SiteBuildIt! site. The site is up, it looks fine and I'm proud of it.

It does not have much traffic yet, but I am already scoring a tiny stream of visitors from some Google searches.

Creating the articles is great fun, although I think I'm maybe using a bit too much time for them. But I try to create unique articles that give great value to the readers. With SiteBuildIt! it is easy to pick subjects for articles and the tools make sure that the articles really get into the lists when people search for them.

This week I'll start my second vacation for this summer. I'll probably cannot keep my hands off my SiteBuildIt! site content, but you won't be getting updates in this blog.

See you in 4 weeks or so!

450% Increase In My Passive Income! (July 2012)

This was an amazing month. I'm now proceeding full speed and really enjoying the process. I've been smiling more than ever and I'm having great fun.

This months Freckle pulse says that I spent 71 hours on my passive income project.


Passive Income In July 2012:
$22

Income is coming from AdFly, affiliate sales and a donation.


Costs In July 2012:
$138

Costs include the monthly payment to Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0 and SiteBuildIt!
They also include one new domain name, reserved for one of my Blogger blogs.


Highlights 

• Two new passive income sources opened
• I joined SiteBuildIt!
• Finding my "voice"
• My SBI! site is up
• Networking

Two New Passive Income Sources

My passive income grew from 4 dollars to 22 dollars this month. That is an increase of 450%. Percentages are just fun, aren't they. I hope to see similar over-exponential growth in the future too.

It always feels special when I get money from somewhere I have not been able to get it before. This month I opened two new sources.

I got my very first donation. It came from my other blog and it was actually given by a person whose work I admire myself. I was glowering the whole next day although I also felt a bit awkward too. It would have been easier to accept a donation from a total stranger. I wonder why?

I also got my first affiliate sales. Maybe it was you who bought SBI! though this blog? Thank you so much for reading my blog and supporting me. Getting those sales felt even better than the donation! Why? Because it is not only money. Getting an affiliate sale means that I have been able to help someone. It feels better than doing a product and just getting paid afterward, what the donation practically is about. I like helping people, it just feels good.

Yes, this blog is full of affiliate links. I put them where-ever I can. World is full of affiliate programs, so I don't have to do any compromises in my writing - I can just write what I want and stick the affiliate links in. For example, the AdFly link in the beginning of this post is an affiliate link. I would have mentioned it anyway, now I'll just get pennies if someone joins through that links and earns with it. You win - I win. I love this game.


I Joined SiteBuildIt!

How did I get the affiliate sales? You do know I have had affiliate links up for some time already. I think I got those sales thanks to SiteBuildIt!

The course contains a book that taught me how to write articles, call-to-actions and copy-writing. While I don't polish articles in this blog much, I practice the concepts from that book. I think my writing has improved much - and so others are more prone to listen to me. Writing is now easier too.

I now also know how to implement the call-to-action pattern and if needed, link several pages to create it.

I used to think that a good product or service sells itself. So I was a bit reluctant to learn marketing and all that jazz. I don't think so anymore - a good product can just sit there somewhere on a corner of the wide wide web and no-one finds it. Suddenly reading about marketing is fun - the information is really useful and SiteBuildIt! presents it in a way that I can see the benefits and apply it to practice immediately.


Finding My "Voice"

I did not realize before that I should try to pour some "me" into my writing. SBI! helped with that too. Now I'm slowly learning to write in my own personal style. I must admit that I enjoy writing more now.

Enjoying writing is a good thing, since I'm going to write a whole bunch or articles to my new site. That is what I am going to do next.


My SiteBuildIt! Site Is Up

Yes, I have my own site online already. It has been up about a week now and attracted over 100 visits.

I'm not going to tell you the exact URL or what the site concept keywords are, not yet.

It concentrates on selling an affiliate product. It is a product I love and have been using for years. I just never thought I could make any money writing about that subject. I used to think I need to have a superb new idea or make something "commercially useful". But now it seems I will be able to make money just by writing about a topic I feel passionate about.


Networking

This month I've communicated with a lot of really nice and super interesting people, both online and offline.

I got some invaluable help and advice from Rebecca, who originally gave me inspiration for my SBI! Site Concept. I wrote to the creator of my affiliated product and got back the most genuinely friendly customer support response I've ever had. It will be a joy to sell her product. In addition, I discussed with several inspiring entrepreneurs, including a person from a company that recently was judged to be the start-up of the year. Also, I've mailed with successful SBIers.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Are most successful people smart, flexible, helpful, friendly and happy? Now, I've really enjoyed meeting these people. Before I used to meet this kind of persons maybe once in two years. Now they are everywhere!


The Challenge

The challenge right now is the time. SiteBuildIt! is a tortoise. I know I can make money with my topic. I just don't know if I'm fast enough to achieve my goal. I still have high hopes. Reaching my goal with my SiteBuildIt! site does require that I get traffic faster than average SBI site. But I'm good at getting traffic. We will see.

Week 11 - Relaxing Pays Off

Look at this:

That is 19 hours!

I can honestly say that Freckle saved this week. I had a feeling that I did very little for my passive income project this week. But Freckle says I did over 15 h of SiteBuildIt!, which is more than in any previous week.


So, what changed?

I stopped trying so hard.

When I wrote my last week report I was a bit fed up. Things were not proceeding with the speed I was hoping for and the sparkle of this passive income project was wearing off. I definitely did not start this week with enthusiasm and motivation. As my goal states that I should have fun and relax, I did that. I decided that this week I would concentrate on other things and do my passive income project on the side, only when I feel like it.

On monday, I did not really feel like doing SiteBuildIt!, so I stopped just after half an hour. But on several other days SiteBuildIt! just captured me. Still, I did A LOT of other things, including some things that I have been waiting to do for a long time.

If I would not have Freckle I'd say that I just skimmed through the week doing things that I enjoy and visited my passive income project every now and then. But the pulse disagrees - telling me that this is the best week this far.

I definitely need to continue taking things more easy!


Halfway there!

Freckle tells me that I have now put 40 h to SiteBuildIt! That have taken me to the end of day 5 and I am now officially halfway to finish that course.

I am also halfway in Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0 after spending little over 4 hours on it. Quite a difference.  But I do think I may have spent couple of hours to this course before I got Freckle, so the actual amount might be 6-8 hours.


Tip of the week

This one comes from Steve:

Getting too excited or passionate about a goal actually pushes it away. You wouldn't feel so excited if you were already there and living it. It would just feel normal to you. Excess emotion, even positive emotion, can be a source of friction that makes it harder to achieve your goals.

Week 10 - Enthusiasm Wearing Off

Here is my Freckle pulse from last week:

That is 16 hours. Most of it went to SiteBuildIt and I'm ready to start the course day 5. That means I now have my site concept (idea, monetization, structure) studied and I'm ready to refine the concept and register a domain name for it.

I also watched the 4th webinar of Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0. It is going to take a while before I'll get to watch the next part. The assignment for this week was to write the book and get it ready for publishing. I'm not going to do that in one week, not even in one month. I want to make it good and properly collect some material for it.

The overly enthusiastic feelings about my passive income project are finally wearing off. I welcome that as it makes my life more relaxed. I no longer dwell on my ideas while I should be sleeping and imagine what it will be like when my "web empire" is ready. This leaves me energy to spend on other things and that is nice.

I want to have a daily routine that is not only hard work. 10-15 hours of work per week that actively takes my project forward is enough. Thanks to Freckle, I now see where my time goes. Sometimes I feel like I did much and then it says I did, but only wrote blog articles or did something else that does not actively take my project forward. This week 11 hours of the work I did was taking me forward. The other 5 hours did not.


Tip of the week

Carry a notebook or a journal. When you get business ideas, just write them down. Then you don't have to dwell on them, but you don't forget them either.

Week 9 - An Eye Opener

Here is my Freckle pulse from last week:

That is 15 hours. It is not as much as I hoped for, but I don't want to push myself either. At least the amount is getting up from previous week. That is nice and I want to keep that trend going.

Most of the hours were used on SiteBuildIt! course. Right now I feel it is a real eye opener to me. I did not know that there were so many little things to take care of when doing a passive income site. When I wrote my post $1000 Passive Income Site Walkthrough I thought I did pretty nice analysis, but I knew I was going to outgrow it. But I thought that would take maybe month or two months. Instead, it took less than a week. Had I started creating my site just based on that analysis, I would have missed so many things. I have also gotten plenty of nice new business/site ideas thanks to SBI! I'll try not to be overly excited about this, but well... it is a bit hard right now.

I reached all of the goals I set for myself last week, except "Watch the next lesson of Getting Rich With eBooks".

Right now I feel SBI! is so much more relevant to me. I do want to make an eBook too, but I can take my time. I do want to follow the schedule on that course, so I'll probably watch the next lesson this week or next week.


Tasks for the next week 

• Monday: Hobby programming 
• Tuesday, Thursday & Friday: SBI! 
• Wednesday: Programming/learning web apps  
• Watch the next lesson of Getting Rich With eBooks

Tip Of The Week

Accept help - let other people assist you. Admitting that you don't know something is not a problem. Not knowing that you don't know something essential is the problem.

Week 8 - Finally Some Action!

This week I did the keyword research for my eBook ideas and picked the best idea for my book. Doing the research was a must - I would have picked a different idea without it. It took me some time to get started, but the next time keyword research session will be fast and easy for me. Vic's method and templates were really useful. We also planned some of the book content as the course homework.

I started to collect my ideas to a little notebook. That way I can put them aside without forgetting them. I no longer want to process my ideas before I have the keyword research results to back them up. Also, I am becoming more innovative as days pass by and I have ideas almost every day. They are also getting better - at least I think so!

I recently registered to Freckle, a time management tool that I told you about in my previous blog post. I just finished logging my first full week so I sat down and looked at my project pulse. I got in 13 hours. I should be working full time on my passive income project and this is what I get in? Where did the time go?

Well, this week I have been busy with the web app I am doing with WebServerGuru. So busy that I even dropped my fun hobby day. I think that is fine, but I cannot continue like this. Doing that work is important, but in order to reach my goal I need to get in more hours. So, in order to not slip into just fulfilling other people's dreams I made a schedule for the next week. A schedule that includes my fun day and a bit more work for the passive income project too.

I also noticed Steve's comment on Google+ about how people should not get overly excited about their goals. Why? Because you should be living your dream, and if you did, you would not be overly excited about it. It would just be your life.

I reflected that idea on myself. Fortunately I am already living my life as I want it to be in the future. I have great fun. But I still admit being overly excited about my passive income project. That is just how I am with new shiny things and projects. Give me one month more and the excitement will start to wear off as routine sets in. Give me 3 months and all this is just my daily work. That's how it goes, I know. Good for me, I don't need to show the results now. So even if this enthusiasm would have negative effect, it has time to wear off.

I am learning to accept the abundance in my life and I am showing it by supporting others who are in the same path. This week I bought a Bootstrapping Design eBook. It has a good sales speech and it is done by another startup bootstrapper. I want to support that!

Goals for the next week

• Monday: Hobby programming
• Tuesday & Thursday: Programming/learning web apps
• Wednesday & Friday: Make a study of an affiliate site, then join SBI!
• Watch the next lesson of Getting Rich With eBooks

Tip of the week

Log your time for a week. At the end of the week, take a look at what you did for your passive income project. How many hours did you put in? Did you do something that will take your passive income project forward? Will you reach your goal with your current input?

Week 7 - June 2012 Status Report

Passive Income In June 2012: 
 $4 

The income is coming from AdFly and AdSense. This was the first full month when I had also affiliate links online and they had some clicks too, but no buys yet. I removed some of the AdSense ads to make room for affiliate links. Unless I do something different/new on next month the passive income is probably not getting up. In other words, I gotta get to the business!

Costs in June 2012: 
 $97 

The costs are from Getting Rich With eBooks course. When I get through the materials of this month, I'll write a new review.
I did buy some books also, including my first Kindle book. As they are not directly related to passive income I'm not including them here.

Theme of the June 2012

Vacation and skill building.

I created my first video tutorial this month - that was huge learning opportunity.
I also read a whopping amount of books - mostly on web programming, but also some books on marketing and successful thinking. I have been waiting for ages to have time to read some of those books. The marketing book was recommended to me by the WebServerGuru.

Overall, I think I've learned this month more than I have learned in all previous 12 months! I have updated my 15-year old skills on HTML and learned CSS and JavaScript.

I feel good about last month and I am ready for some action now.

Week 5 - Some Passive Value Before My Vacation

This week's report comes a bit early since I'm starting my vacation today.

I had two goals for this week. I wanted to get my programming project into a nice condition before my vacation. That went fine and I actually did not have to put much hours into it.

I also took Steve's challenge to create and publish something. I created my first video upload ever: Hands-on Video: Test-Driven Development - Java Application Skeleton

I am really happy that I took the challenge, because I learned so much doing it. It took me two working days to get my 30-minute video done. I had zero experience on videos so I started by downloading some tools and learning how to use them. Next I found out that I am not able to get everything on one take. I tried several times, but I always made mistakes in programming, stuttered or someone rang the doorbell. When I finally was able to get a longer piece of recording done, the recording application did not save it due to a restriction in file size! Finally I gave up and made my video in pieces. But that meant I needed to learn video processing too.

I thought doing videos for web is super easy, but I ended up with quite a crappy video. But it is my first so I think that is acceptable and I am really happy that I created it. After reading this article on uploading videos to YouTube and watching this video on how to make video tutorials for Blender I found out I did almost everything wrong!

The reason my video got blurry was the resolution. I should have recorded it using aspect ratio of 4:3 or 16:9. I also found out that YouTube resizes the video on upload and that I should have uploaded it in HD. Unfortunately YouTube limit for HD videos is 10 minutes and I already had split my video to 15-minute pieces. So I ended up uploading to Vimeo, just to find out that they allow only one HD video per week. I should have joined up the parts of my video before upload. Now the first part of my video is HD and the second part is not. But I can always re-upload the second part next week.

I used the following free programs to make my video:

• Webinaria for recording (I also tried FrontCam, CamStudio and several others)
• VirtualDub for editing 
• MediaCoder for conversion (I also tried FormatFactory, but it crashed on .mp4 conversion)

Doing something little and giving it away for free is a perfect way to try out something and get comments. I had a totally different idea of how the end result would look like and I'm really happy now that I did not invest anything but time on this yet. I also have much better grasp now what it takes to make a product around videos.

Tip of the week

The 2012 Ultimate You Mindfest is starting in couple of days and it is free. I've been listening their paraliminal relaxation audio and it is really effective, so I'm looking forward to the actual fest.

I also got a recommendation for an interesting book that I'll probably buy when I get back:
The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany

So, I'm heading to vacation now. See you after two weeks!

Week 4 - Embracing The Change

This week I have finally gotten some routine into my new lifestyle. I love my life now. I do about 4 hours of programming in the morning and then I use the afternoon to either on my hobby projects or to work on my passive income stream. If I want to do something else or change the routine, I can, and I enjoy it. On thursday I was so tired I slept through the whole morning! I can feel there is some extra stress around, but I assume that is normal right now. There is a thing called stress scale that measures how stressful different life changes are and changing a job is in the top 10. So I'm trying not to push myself too much.

I also had my first challenges. My old limiting beliefs crept to the surface, and I canceled the Get Rich With eBooks course. Fortunately, with a little help I noticed what was happening and reactivated my course account. Processing that stuff took a huge amount of mental energy. Stress and worry can kill a project like this, so I smashed them right away. The course came with an affirmations audio. I now listen it on the background when I work. I really like it and it is better than my old set of affirmations.

When I started with Get Rich With eBooks I thought I would not be needing any affirmations of motivational stuff. But I am still a newbie in so many ways, so the best I can do now is to stick to the courses and just do what the teacher says.


Tip of the week

Watch videos and podcasts on double speed. I tried this and realized I could easily follow them double speed. I need to learn much, so this will save hours of my time. No 3 x speed for me though, that needs some practice.

I'm using VLC Viewer, a free software that has an option to open streams over network.

Chris & Steve, thanks for the tip.


Goals for the next week

1. Work on my programming project
2. Create and publish something valuable (Steve's challenge in post Passive Value)

This is the last week before my 2-week vacation, so I want to get the programming project into a phase where others can easily continue working on it.

I already create and publish something valuable almost every week, but I wanted to take Steve's challenge anyway. I have a certain thing in my mind that I want to try.

Week 3 - May 2012 Status Report

Passive Income In May 2012:   

$4

The income is coming from AdFly and AdSense, both of which I am trying out in my current blogs. They have an income limit so that I cannot really cash as small an amount as $4, but as it was earned this month I wanted to report it.

Costs in May 2012:               

$26

The costs are from a hastily bought GoDaddy domain that I will probably never need and the Get Rich With eBooks 3.0 Course 10 day trial. 

I also registered for the free Ultimate You Mindfest course that starts on June 18th. I am afraid that I may miss part of it due to my vacation, but hopefully I am able to attend at least part of the sessions.

Theme of the May 2012

Preparations and skill building.

I committed to my goal. I arranged time for the project and I started my skill building. I have assessed my strengths/weaknesses and made a rough budget for the project.

I have also done some searching for potential ideas and customers, and I have a worksheet where I collect that information.

I learned some web programming and search engine optimization. I learned how to find new ideas and how to evaluate their commercial potential.

  

Week 2 - Status Report

OK, what have I done this week for my passive income stream... Not much, since this was my last week at work.

I was busy with competence transfer and I wanted to enjoy the last moments with my colleagues. I have worked for the same company for 13 years so it was a big thing for me to leave. I will surely miss my workmates.

But I still did do something in addition to reading Steve's blog posts and doing the exercises he gave.

I bought a domain and thought a bit about my budget.

My lovely husband/assistant/manager made a spreadsheet that contains our ideas and keywords.

I joined to SBI Affiliate Program and practiced using affiliate links in a proper context. In case you did not notice, my last blog post contained several affiliate links. And in case you did not notice, Steve's last blog post also contained affiliate links in a very effective context.

Steve says that he has helped thousands of people to find SBI. SBI Affiliate Program says that a people won earns you $75-$250. So 1000 people means... $75000-$250000. Not bad, huh?

In his Best Affiliate Programs article Allan Gardyne confesses that SBI is the biggest moneymaker for him. If you are interested in affiliate marketing, Allan's articles are a must-read. Before I started reading them I was not able to spot 80% of affiliate links at all. They are everywhere. And if they are presented properly, I am happy to click them.

I did not join to SBI Affiliate Program because others are making good money with it. I joined because I have already decided to take course. Becoming an affiliate is free and they have a massive amount of training material for their affiliates. But the best thing for me is that I am now able to see inside of one of the most successful affiliate marketing program. My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw that they have over 100 landing pages to gain interest of different people. And they also have free downloadable material for different groups (which are probably an excellent read even if you would not be taking the course). Becoming an affiliate is a good way to gain easy access to all that material and learn how the best affiliate programs are built. I think that joining to SBI Affiliate Program was probably the smartest thing I did this week. You'll get yourself a head full of material for free.

I also joined to GoDaddy and BlueHost affiliate programs. No need to put my eggs in a single basket. I have also joined several other affiliate networks, but as I did that before I even started this project I'm not listing them now.

How are you guys managing all your affiliate accounts?

Week 1 - Learning

This week I have:

• Surfed the web for several hours on product creation and search engine optimization (SEO)
• Discussed with the WebServerGuru
• Analyzed how I could most efficiently produce value and to whom
• Worked on my skills (2 books read)

At the beginning of the week I did some random web surfing on how to drive traffic to my future passive income stream sites. I freaked out when I found out all my blogs have names that are not search engine optimized and as I am using Blogger I cannot even use the SEO-plugins that are available for WordPress.

Fortunately I also had a quick meeting with the WebServerGuru. I did mention him earlier, he is the one who is helping me update my programming skills for the web development. He gave me two books to read on technologies/tools that I want/need to learn. I just finished reading the books and they were both great reads.

He also gave me a very brief introduction to Search Engine Optimization and he made it sound much less scary than the guys who are in a profession of selling me tools and courses to do that. He said that it mostly boils down to carefully selecting a small enough set of keywords for my site that I will then consistently repeat in my site content. Before that I first need to check with Google Keyword Tool that the words I select have enough searches, but that they are not too popular and thus have too much competition to beat. I should repeat those words in the URLs that I use, image names and in the content I create. I also need to get people to link to my site and if they use my keywords in the link, the better. I can get started by linking to my site from my other pages, but I must be careful not to make circular links. I can also try posting to forums, social media and blogs. He also said that getting traffic by repeating the keywords in hidden content, like invisible html tags or with white font on white background are maybe not worth it and if done too much one can get caught on using them. Overall, that does not sound too hard! I do know I have lot to learn still.

While surfing I visited Unicorn Free blog. Amy is an author of Java Performance Rocks book and she is living on passive income, coming from her software, books and courses. She has a passive income system that resembles the one I want to build and she managed to get hers up quite fast. So I was thrilled that she is starting a course on product creation on June and she has sample course material in her blog. Unfortunately that course costs almost $3000. But the samples are free and after I read those I got my first good product idea. So I really recommend reading the samples. They will help you not become a slave to your ideas. I have not yet decided if I will try to apply to the course. I think the course is horribly expensive, but on the other hand I've seen and been on more expensive ones with less content than she is already giving out for free - I just have not been the one paying them! (Edit: looks like I might be late too, probably all the seats are taken already!)

I've also (of course) read Steve's suggestion to start thinking how I could produce something of value. The most obvious way for me would be to continue doing what I am already doing now - programming. But I could also teach people and I'm good at learning new things myself, so there are plenty of options for me.