Layered Thoughts

Vaynerchuk is a crazy bitch. I’ve only recently started following him but what he preaches is pretty amazing considering how successful he’s become simply by hustling his way to the top. The man works harder than his competition and that has propelled him to success. Sounds simple, but obviously his mentality is what you need to get your projects rocking and to get a leg up on the competition.

Here’s his most recent video, you can see his intensity simply in his facial expressions, the guy is fired up:

I’ve decided a goal of mine for 2009 should be to set up a few reliable sources of passive income.  To be clear, what I mean by passive income is setting up revenue sources that basically self operate once launched.  The concept is outlined in the 4 Hour Work Week, a book by Timothy Ferriss that admittedly I have only skimmed, but needless to say I grabbed some good ideas from it anyways.  This concept of passive income has been brought up in many other places online though.

My personal idea of passive income is that of simple, relatively quick to build tools and solutions to a minimal set of problems.  A To-Do list site is a great example.  To-Do lists are easy to program, solve a pretty specific problem, and don’t require much work once launched.  The ideal situation for passive income.

What could be used for passive income? Well, for my skill set, which is web design/web development/blogging (yep, this shit is a skill of mine now), there are a few different options:

Web Design

I really want to get into Wordpress themes.  Wordpress is easily the most popular blogging platform and has a pretty healthy theme market surrounding it as well.  I would probably submit themes to a few different theme markets as well as post them here so as to be able to keep all of the proceeds if I managed to sell them here.  I wouldn’t charge much simply because I wouldn’t pay much if I need a theme.

What I think is a good option in regards to Wordpress themes is making themes for situations other than blogging.  Yes, Wordpress is a blogging platform at heart.  But it also can serve as an ecommerce site, a CMS, or even a news source.  So I think that if you were to cater to those different niche type Wordpress uses with your premium themes, you would be able to hit a much less saturated market with your product.  I have one layout in my files for a site that ended up never getting used and is only a few tweaks away from being a Wordpress theme so I’m pretty tempted to try and hack it into a theme once I have some free time.

Chris from CSS-Tricks.com has put together 3 really good Wordpress Theme Screencasts for anyone interested in customizing Wordpress themselves.

• Designing for Wordpress #1
• Designing for Wordpress #2
• Designing for Wordpress #3

Web Development

My tool of choice currently is Ruby on Rails.  I’ve finally gotten to a point where I’m comfortable enough to hack together some pretty advanced projects (As a matter of fact, I’ll be working on getting a full site done in one day tomorrow).  A nice way to pick up some extra consistent cash would be to build a few relatively simple web services that make people’s lives easier.  These don’t need to be massive solutions to a number of problems; in fact, I think doing so would be the opposite of passive income once the site is launched as you would have to focus on keeping everything maintained.

The goal with passive income is to work really hard in the beginning to get a product built, then launch it to the world with the most minimum amount of maintenance requirements possible in the future.

I have 3 ideas in my head right now for projects that serve a solid purpose, are needed by a pretty good amount of people, and would not require much work once built.  I actually have one of the ideas half way done.  I really want to try and get all 3 going.  Obviously I would start with the half way done one and see if that can bring in a few bucks.

One of the ideas revolves around affiliate marketing.  This is an area I’m admittedly ignorant in but seems like a pretty good source for passive income.  There are some tools that exist that allow someone to pick a set of products to sell for a commission, for instance, but instead of having to manually select products, you could just type in “fishing” and the store would self populate itself.  That is some great functionality and I think I have a pretty good idea of a site concept to try out.  It will take some work to get fully functional, but once there it would be very minimal upkeep, maybe only a few hours a week. Perfect.

Blogging

I know I know, I’m new to this stuff.  But I really like it.  I’ve made it a goal to write every day (or at least every other day to be realistic) with at least some post about something I found interesting.  I also want to post at least one major essay a week, like this one.  Something of real value and substance.  I’ve started using mind maps to organize some topics for new articles and it’s amazing.  I’ll actually be writing an article about how I plan to write articles soon.  I’m planning on keeping my essays focused on certain topics in regards to technology, the internet, and maybe some philosophy or religion if I feel it’s necessary.  Keeping this flow of content moving forward will fill this blog up with some good info in a few months.

And while I do not expect to become so crazy successful blogger with 100,000 readers a day, I do hope to at least pick up a good amount of traffic eventually.  If so, I’ll start looking into some advertising options for this blog to pick up a few extra bucks where I can.  Nothing intrusive so as to not affect the reading experience, but most likely some Google Adsense as well as some other advertising networks, some affiliate links, and maybe even some blog sponsorships if anyone would be willing to buy some space.

All of this is down the line, but being able to monetize something I enjoy would be pretty cool so I hope that one day that can become an option

Why Passive Income?

I am very much a project oriented thinker.  I come up with new ideas all the time, so I’m constantly bouncing around from one to the next, all the while making sure that I’m also paying the bills.  Having a steady stream of passive income would allow me to focus less on making my rent and more on projects that have the potential to really turn into something big.

And that’s ultimately what I want to do.  I see myself as an idea guy, someone who can think up a product and build the initial prototype and then pass it on to someone else to develop and then move on to the next project.

I would love for that to be my day job.  But to get there, I am going to need to build up these passive income streams in order to smooth over any low income spots.  That way I can stay completely focused on the big projects.

Plus, if I could pull in even just $0.10 from this blog, I can add “Professional Blogger” to my resume.

I decided this weekend that I’m going to start giving away stuff that I’ve made to better help other people who might be looking for the same things.  Whether it’s contracts or agreements or organizational stuff or maybe just a poster or design I put together, if I decide it will be free, it shall be free.  So as I come across more things I want to give away, I’ll put up posts saying I did so and then link over to the Downloads page so you can go check them out and download them to your heart’s content.  As if a Project Time Tracking Spreadsheet could really make your heart content.  You get the point.

A company I really admire in the world of business and technology is 37signals. They have created a handful of very powerful business collaboration and management products and have become very successful doing so. They have also become pretty famous for being the guys who do what they want despite what’s the fad in the industry. They have defined themselves outside of the quickly changing fads of the tech world and because of that have become notable figures in the universe they contrast. (Sorry about that last sentence sounding like the thesis statement from an essay by an 8th grader) Recently, one of their cofounders, Jason Fried, gave a presentation about how to market a product or business through educating your customers. First of all, here it is (It’s only about 15 minutes long): [blip.tv ?posts_id=1442785&dest=-1] What I took away from Jason’s talk was that most businesses today are afraid of anyone knowing how they do things and instead are focused on paying to market their product through advertising in order to gain new customers.  They are doing the work of searching for new customers. Jason is advocating that businesses should instead strive to educate their customers on everything pertaining to their how their product works and how it will help thm.  By teaching people about how you solve problems and make great products, you’re bringing people in as fans of your business.  And when you make a name for your business, you’re making a name for any products your business might create. And I think what’s most interesting about what he is saying is that he’s pointing out that if you’re good at what you do, you’ll succeed even if you’re telling everyone how you do it.  By making a name for yourself and helping those who are looking to solve the problems your products solve, you’re creating a brand loyalty that is unattainable through traditional media outlets.