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!