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Thread: Hobby to Job

  1. #1
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    Hobby to Job

    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.)

  2. #2
    Senior Member thebillionaire's Avatar
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    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

  3. #3
    Website Developer
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    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
    Make more money - Read my Web Publishing Blog

  4. #4
    Senior Member thebillionaire's Avatar
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    I guess I kinda take as work too, part time because I know I can make alot

  5. #5
    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.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter T Davis
    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.

  7. #7
    Registered Billyray's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt
    Gee, you sound like a bum.
    more like a role model for me

  8. #8
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    I guess if you have low expectations...

  9. #9
    Web Monkey MarkB's Avatar
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    You're living up to your name, I see.
    Stepping On Wires - the new blog

  10. #10
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    Gee, how clever.

  11. #11
    Web Monkey MarkB's Avatar
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    Why thankyou
    Stepping On Wires - the new blog

  12. #12
    Chronic Entrepreneur
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    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.

  13. #13
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
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    Westech, are those all the sites you make income off of?

  14. #14
    Chronic Entrepreneur
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    Quote Originally Posted by michael_gersitz
    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.

  15. #15
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
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    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.

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