For those of you who consider this (web publishing) thier main job, what made you make the transition between hobby and job?
(Sorry if this thread has been done before, it just intrests me.)
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For those of you who consider this (web publishing) thier main job, what made you make the transition between hobby and job?
(Sorry if this thread has been done before, it just intrests me.)
im guessing money was a big factor when ur like chris or andy make $400,000+ a year you dont have time to do a job for someone else, but I think chris started before he made alot. I make crap so I'm not sure
For me once I realised I could really make money it became a job. I've been designing web pages for years -- my first back in 1996 I think. Back then that was a hobby. If I only would have realised ;)
I guess I kinda take as work too, part time because I know I can make alot
For me it was the confluence of several events in my life. Having a kid changed my outlook on life, it was no longer acceptible to me to be out of the house 50-60 hours a week at work. You absolutely cannot beat spending several afternoons per week with your kid outside in the park on a sunny summer day. Also, the tech company I was working for had a precipitous drop in revenue and I choose to be laid off rather than accept a pay cut. I never really liked having a boss anyway and consider my employment history as a sort of apprenticeship where I observed how successful entrepreneurs conducted themselves. Around the same time I started to figure out how easy it was to put together a decent website and start making some revenue from it. I never had any doubt that I'd end up making my own business, the only question I had was what would the nature of the business be, I think I have that sorted now.
Gee, you sound like a bum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter T Davis
more like a role model for me :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Hunt
I guess if you have low expectations...
You're living up to your name, I see.
Gee, how clever. :rolleyes:
Why thankyou :)
I make enough online now that I could afford to quit my day job. I'm too chicken to do it because I'm not sure how steady the website revenue will be. It's a little intimidating to quit a great job and depend fully on my online earnings to support my family. If I were unmarried, didn't have a mortgage to pay, or didn't currently have a good job then I'd go fully self-employed in a second.
As things are now, I plan on doing the following before I consider quitting the day job:
1. Wait until my online earnings have steadily matched or exceeded my day-job earnings for one full year
2. Save up one year's worth of day-job salary - just in case things go bad
3. Diversify into at least one other website that earns significant income and gets its revenue from different advertisers/methods than the first
Aside from the financial security, there are pros and cons to keeping the day job. On the plus side, I can save or re-invest a lot of what I make online, thus providing excellent cash flow for growing my business. The drawback is that I don't have nearly enough time to do all that I want with my websites. If I had more time I feel that I could grow my sites and my earnings much more quickly. I love my job, but it can be very frustrating to spend 8+ hours a day working to solve someone else's problems while thinking of several things that you could be doing to grow your own business if you had the time.
Westech, are those all the sites you make income off of?
You mean the ones in my signature? Crazy Monkey Games is my main website earner. I also make a little from a few sites that I'm keeping under wraps until they grow a little more. I also have a small hosting business that targets my local market. I've run it since before I ever found this forum and considered creating any content sites. It helps boost the online income, but I'm thinking of gradually phasing it out since it takes up quite a bit more of my time than the websites do.Quote:
Originally Posted by michael_gersitz
Wes,
Man, I just checked out Crazy Monkey Games, at first glance I thought it was just a standard games site, that there are thoasands of already. But you really did some nice work customizing it, adding great pages, which explained everything I wanted to know about your site and more. Your sponsorship program is freaken awesome. The downloading content looks like urgames and games2go and gamesforyourwebsite. Dunno why it reminded me of that, but oh well. Great Site.
Thanks! There are a lot more improvements in the works but, as stated in my post above, I'm a little short on the time I need to implement them. Hopefully I'll find the time soon.
I'm pretty much the same place as Westech, except I'm not quite making enough yet each month to leave work.
Intend to grow though, and eventually be able to 'give up the day job'. I like the idea of waiting till web earnings are over employee earnings for a year. I might borrow that goal/idea if you dont mind :)
Read this VERY carefully. Try to understand it.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkB
Read the following very carefully... *** wipe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Hunt
LOL, good one.Quote:
Originally Posted by moonshield
Oh, I understand sarcasm. I also realise you're just trolling. Have fun!
I think its worth pointing out that being employeed by someone else isn't exactly more secure than being self-employeed. If all your income comes from one source you are in a risky position whether it is your employer or Adsense.
yea good point, atleast when ur working for your self you can make all the important decision, if your working and ur manager screws up then you might end up paying with ur job, so in a way working for some one else may be alot more risky then yourself
That's true; however I'm in a somewhat less risky position than others as I'm employed by a public University.
The same is probably true for people with government jobs; don't think I could ever enjoy myself at either, I'll take the risk ;)
it matters what your government job is. If it were as a federal judge, I would take that job in a heartbeat.
As soon as I can afford to give up the day job (and have a backup pool of money for security), I'm ditching it as fast as I can. Being a wage slave is no fun. :)
I echo tha sentiment Mark (Hope the Boss isn't looking!)
Westech does your wife work? Mabye you could teach her how to run a few of your websites to give you some more free time.
Yes, she works full time and goes to school part time just like me, so she doens't have much free time either. She's not really all that technically oriented when it comes to websites, but she's almost finished with her MBA and she's very organized and pretty good with Excel. I think I almost have her convinced to help me out by keeping the books. :)
You have a family, a job, a hobby/job and go to school? Hows that ulcer coming ;)
Well, the family just consists of my wife and I for now so it's not all that bad. I couldn't imagine trying to do all this while taking care fo kids... Still, the ulcer's coming along nicely! Thanks for asking. :)
Seriously though, it's stressful at times but not all that bad. I'm able to keep up with everything that I HAVE to do to keep it all going. Sometimes I have to compromise on things I WANT to do to such as build up the websites and teach adjunct courses.
Overall it's worthwhile because I know that in a year or so I'll have my Masters degree and a very successful business. That's when all of the hard work will pay off. If all goes according to plan I'll be able to work from home (usually less than 40 hours per week), take time off whenever I want to travel, go to the kids' soccer games, school plays, etc., teach as many or as few adjunct courses as I want, and just generally live life according to my terms instead of someone else's. I think it's worth working my butt off for a couple of years to get there.
Nice one, Westech. Best of luck with it :)
Ah, hehe. I'm also working, and doing a MSc part-time :)
Not quite married yet, but it feels like it :rolleyes: Just kidding ;) Hope she's not reading this ;)
Good luck with your course too, what are you doing? Do you ever wonder if its worth doing the Masters if you are planning on quitting work in the near future? Maybe its an MBA so will always be useful? Mines in Digital Signal Processing, so not much use in web design :rolleyes:
Thanks for the kind words everyone!
I'm working on an MS in Management Information Systems. For me the degree is definitely worth it because it will allow me to teach more college-level IT courses. I've done a few part-time in the past and really enjoyed it. I plan to continue teaching in the future even if (when?) I become extremely wealthy. :D Plus, it's a good way to make extra money on the side to supplement the online income.
I'm in kind of the same situation as you guys. I have two fulltime jobs, a newborn daughter, a girlfriend (basically my wife) and I'm trying to get my sites off the ground. It's not fun trying to juggle everything but hopefully once I get some projects off the ground I'll be able to earn a decent income from them and can leave one of my jobs, which would give me more time to work on other projects.
well im busy too, I usually get time to work online at 10pm, 9-3:30 school, one hour to eat and relax, then its like 5-9(sometimes 10) homework, then after being free I try to work some more, I get all the manditory task's done but when it comes to expanding its almost impossible over the weekdays. But I'm trying to work my *** off right now because I dont have to pay any taxes until im out of university(expect when u get out the canadian taxes are so high that ur screwed :) ), but if I can expand my site alot before graduating from uni then I wont lose much money, im still in highschool so I have a few years before leaving university
Well for me it's - school - 8.30 - 3.00, work (I have a part-time job as a check out chick, how hounarble :P) - 3.30 - 8.30 then homework (which is my website at the moment) from then till when I feel like sleeping.
The assigment with the website is due tomorrow, gotta pray google doesn't put the 'Punk Sex' ad on my site again during my presentation :P.
I know you did ask about this before, but did anyone suggest putting that site in the 'Competitive Ad Filter'? That way it wont show ads for that site.
Was suggested, but it isn't actually a site. I click on the link and it takes me to a page on google saying "There are no ads for this catagory."