Post: #1

A thread for all ongoing generic questions about online marketing, seo, copywriting, working remote, ecommerce, webdesign and general inspiration and discussion.

Thought we could use one, since a lot of us probably work in some related field.

Post: #2

I am definitely interested in passive income ideas. I just wonder what is scalable. Some opportunities seem to be very much a relationship/one off thing where it isn't available to everyone.

The only things that I can think of off hand that would be good for everyone would be stocks and other financial instruments that throw off dividends.

Real estate is a one off thing, we could take about CAP rates, or rehabs etc, but once again they are one time transactions that not everyone could do.

Online marketing, seo, copywriting, working remote, ecommerce, webdesign are great items but unfortunately not passive. Well I guess if you set up your sites right maybe it has minimal maintenance.

What you guys doing that are passive investments that everyone could do?

Post: #3

Gonna post a comprehensive affiliate marketing, digital marketing, making money online data sheet. Both my experienced the past few years as well as colleagues because Noone can fathom truly how ridiculously diverse as well as weird it is as an industry. Look for it tonight around 2am. Because well I worked out, took care of things and will have time for a few hours to decompress.

Post: #4

(12-04-2014 09:06 PM)Black Quixote Wrote:  Gonna post a comprehensive affiliate marketing, digital marketing, making money online data sheet. Both my experienced the past few years as well as colleagues because Noone can fathom truly how ridiculously diverse as well as weird it is as an industry. Look for it tonight around 2am. Because well I worked out, took care of things and will have time for a few hours to decompress.

Is it possible to set up something online where it only takes minimal time to manage after set up? Not trying to be lazy but if a lot of hours are needed to get a few dollars it may not justify the effort. If very little is done once set up, then it could well be worth it.

Thank you in advance.

Post: #5

(12-04-2014 09:11 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(12-04-2014 09:06 PM)Black Quixote Wrote:  Gonna post a comprehensive affiliate marketing, digital marketing, making money online data sheet. Both my experienced the past few years as well as colleagues because Noone can fathom truly how ridiculously diverse as well as weird it is as an industry. Look for it tonight around 2am. Because well I worked out, took care of things and will have time for a few hours to decompress.

Is it possible to set up something online where it only takes minimal time to manage after set up? Not trying to be lazy but if a lot of hours are needed to get a few dollars it may not justify the effort. If very little is done once set up, then it could well be worth it.

Thank you in advance.

No. Not if you want to make any significant amount of money. Making money online is not easy. Anybody who tells you it is easy is trying to sell you something.

Post: #6

(12-04-2014 09:25 PM)travolta Wrote:  

(12-04-2014 09:11 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(12-04-2014 09:06 PM)Black Quixote Wrote:  Gonna post a comprehensive affiliate marketing, digital marketing, making money online data sheet. Both my experienced the past few years as well as colleagues because Noone can fathom truly how ridiculously diverse as well as weird it is as an industry. Look for it tonight around 2am. Because well I worked out, took care of things and will have time for a few hours to decompress.

Is it possible to set up something online where it only takes minimal time to manage after set up? Not trying to be lazy but if a lot of hours are needed to get a few dollars it may not justify the effort. If very little is done once set up, then it could well be worth it.

Thank you in advance.

No. Not if you want to make any significant amount of money. Making money online is not easy. Anybody who tells you it is easy is trying to sell you something.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. And there never will be.

Post: #7

I have something for you guys. It will be ready in a week or so. Everyone is going to be pretty happy I suspect.

If things go right you'll be cashing in for doing next to nothing.

Post: #8

There are ways to overtime cut down your time investment. The issue is with quality control. You are going to be spending a good amount on talent and keeping them under you. Basically young or middle aged people with skills that are in difficult positions. You ultimately for automation are going to be responsible for developing a system. Laziness will kill your business. It's killed mine twice due to vices. You have to accept that the seven deadly sins aren't just deadly to the body, your business is an entity and as such your livelihood. I am going to do a seperate data sheet on training and finding virtual assistants.

Post: #9

Btw make that data sheet 2pm EST.

Post: #10

(12-05-2014 12:08 AM)Black Quixote Wrote:  Btw make that data sheet 2pm EST.

Look forward to seeing this.

Post: #11

(12-04-2014 09:41 PM)Fisto Wrote:  I have something for you guys. It will be ready in a week or so. Everyone is going to be pretty happy I suspect.

If things go right you'll be cashing in for doing next to nothing.

Looking forward to reading your work and Black Quixote's too.

Post: #12

(12-05-2014 12:07 AM)Black Quixote Wrote:  There are ways to overtime cut down your time investment. The issue is with quality control. You are going to be spending a good amount on talent and keeping them under you. Basically young or middle aged people with skills that are in difficult positions. You ultimately for automation are going to be responsible for developing a system. Laziness will kill your business. It's killed mine twice due to vices. You have to accept that the seven deadly sins aren't just deadly to the body, your business is an entity and as such your livelihood. I am going to do a seperate data sheet on training and finding virtual assistants.

For sure, I think one of the most important things to do when trying to build an online business is to realize the idea of passive income is a pipe dream. You will always have to do some managerial work, but you can work a lot less hours when you get good at outsourcing and creating systems.

I've also gone from high income to modest income several times due to laziness and not preparing for the future.

Post: #13

I just put up Adsense on a site that I made 3 years ago and was just letting it build up. Looks like it will make $500 a month.

My new goal is to make about 10 new sites and get hopefully around $100 a month each for $1,000 a month in income.

Post: #14

A question about making a site that gathers info from other sites.

I know it is uncool to post entire articles, but doing a couple of paragraphs and then making it link to original site is cool correct?

With videos is it ok to embed? Or best to make a description and link to the original? Sometimes, I have noticed on RVF a youtube video will be embedded but when you click on it something like, "the author has made this onluy viewable on his site" or something to that effect. Anyway to embed in such a way when it is clicked it goes to source site?

I plan on gathering info about certain subject matters, a one stop shop so to say. But leveraging off existing articles, etc. If there is enough traffic, I could make ad revenue from the traffic correct?

I am striving for something like vivlamanospher but not about the manosphere.

Thanks.

Post: #15

How far would $40K go to build an online business for passive income? Say $20k initial investment and the rest dolled out over a year for ads, ect?

Post: #16

(12-12-2014 07:27 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  How far would $40K go to build an online business for passive income? Say $20k initial investment and the rest dolled out over a year for ads, ect?

Let's assume you want to buy an existing turn-key website that someone else has set up and is making money. On a marketplace like Flippa (not the best place to buy by a long shot, but the biggest) you can buy such a site for a multiple of about 12 x monthly income.

So your $20k can get you a site that makes $1500-$2000 monthly, and the rest of your money can go towards promotion, PPC etc.

This would be putting your eggs in one basket though and it would be easy for someone new to get burned. Obviously, your nice $2k/month can suddenly tank or drift downwards. With time and study like any business though, you can build up a portfolio of sites, become a savvy buyer, and learn how to promote them cost-effectively.

So having the cash to buy a profitable site outright will be an advantage, but you will still have to learn the principles that the creator used in order to build such a site.

Post: #17

RawGod,

Just following up on your post. So if you were to break down the universe of websites some sell actual items, some share info and make advertising money, some are data collectors, some are referral sites and I am drawing a blank on any sort of groupings.

What would you say is the best way for someone to start?

I am really interested but to form an LLC is California is so frigging unreasonable, but I am not sure of what liabilities a website creates. Obviously, selling things that harm people etc, would create liabilities, etc. but what are the legal risks.

Thanks.

Post: #18

(12-12-2014 08:14 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  RawGod,

Just following up on your post. So if you were to break down the universe of websites some sell actual items, some share info and make advertising money, some are data collectors, some are referral sites and I am drawing a blank on any sort of groupings.

What would you say is the best way for someone to start?

I am really interested but to form an LLC is California is so frigging unreasonable, but I am not sure of what liabilities a website creates. Obviously, selling things that harm people etc, would create liabilities, etc. but what are the legal risks.

Thanks.

Depends on your skillset and what you like to do.

It's all equally hard to some degree. If you can code, you should make a site with some kind of functionality that compares stuff or manipulates data, aggregates stuff etc. If you can really write, then maybe you need to do a blog about a topic you are passionate about. Are you great at crunching the numbers and have some capital, maybe you should look into buying traffic. A born trader and salesman, then maybe a webshop or dropshipping.

I know this is not the response you'd like, but there are a million ways to make money online and no course is inherently better or easier. All depends on your talents. Of course, it's very easy to throw up a blog and put on some ads, cheapest option too, but if you can't write and promote, no one is going to read it.

What is your background? Technical, sales, creative? What are your marketeable skills right now if you wanted a job? These will help you decide what course to take. Most of all of course, what do you really want to do yourself. What topics can you spend 12 hour days on?

When you can answer those, then you can decide on your monetization method, be it webshop, blog, comparison review site, paid traffic cpa, product creation, webapp. And then it's easier to link you to some good blogs and guides to get you started.

Post: #19

You need not form your LLC in California especially if you plan to work remotely and/or the business activities are not principally occurring in the People's Republic of California. Have a look at Wyoming and a couple of others for good places to form an LLC.

Most US corporations choose Delaware to incorporate but that's overkill unless you plan on issuing public stock. LLCs can be based anywhere, really. Even large private companies continue to use them versus incorporating.

Post: #20

Samsamsam, I would say that the best way to start would be with affiliates or sites monetized purely by ads. The advantage being that once it is set up you don't have to handle any logistics, customer service etc. Just bring in traffic, that's it. Ecommerce (dropshipping or your own products) will be better but there are a lot more moving parts. There could be substantial backends like customer service and a supply chain that has to be kept up with.

So for example, start by buying 2-3 small affiliate sites. Learn how to bring in traffic and optimise your conversion rates. See if you can grow them and flip them after six months. Amazon affiliates could be an option, not the best way to make money but it's easy to build and buy/sell such sites.

Buying one or two "passive income" (don't like that term at all) sites is not a long-term strategy, building up a portfolio and learning the ins and outs of them is. The beauty is that you can turn them over after a year or so, staying ahead of the fact that things change so fast.

Have no idea about forming an LLC in the USA.

Post: #21

For sustainable affiliate type sites http://www.nichepursuits.com/ is a good place to start. Lays everything out from beginning to end with plenty of real life examples.

Post: #22

I've got a few steps closer to pulling ~$700 a day on a new job, but will only have to work about ~50% of the year. I got an ingenious idea for Fisto and I to start a new online idea, and can develop it during my downtime. It will initially start as a travel blog with a new twist, but then eventually sell our own line of products, and a travel show to boot.

Post: #23

I don't get this obsession with passive income... Why not build up a legitimate online business for an acquisition or hire someone to take care of your duties once it's established?

It seems like everyone wants to throw money at something or slap a blog together and collect a few grand a month. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Alternatively, if you had 20K, you could potentially build 10 or more decent websites that would either connect to work together in a network or be stand-alone sites.

An example would be something like this:

Findphotographers.com, Findgraphicdesigners.com, findwebdevelopers.com, findplumbers.com... basically a connection of niche websites that would work together and you could have a banner much like themeforest.net connecting them altogether.

On the flip side, you could create 5-12 unique (preferably niche) sales or product sites where you could direct traffic to make money off affiliate products or referral links. The other option would be to make a good site...

For example, I'm starting a website. It's bootstrap so far but I'm probably going to be getting investors or at the very minimum a loan very soon. What I've spent to have the website created and commission an animation team to create promotional cartoons has cost me about $4000. This is with top of the line plugins and all. Bare in mind I did all of the designing for the website. Despite this, I'm visually not very creative and it was pretty hard for me to do and time consuming.

I'm writing all the content on the site and even writing the blog posts. It's a lot of work but I'm creating an awesome service in a relatively open and HUGE market (I'm actually combining 2 markets with my website, and creating the first online only business in the respective field.)

My game plan is to establish the website, develop a sales team - of which I already have a Project Manager, contact news agencies to bring a little exposure to the site, get on the dragons den/shark tank, build up the business and prepare for acquisition in 2-3 years. Although, if the business grows as I want it to, I may never sell it.

My point is, why not go all the way. I'm not saying internet business are the only way to go but they are definitely the easiest businesses to grow in a short amount of time and get a decent pay off (500K-1 Mil) within a few years. Go retire off that, why sell yourself short to 2K a month?

To commission a sales team you can begin with a location independent team based on a VOIP system and CRM. Cost per user on a mid-level call centre software will be around $100-200 per month. With these numbers you could:

Build a website: conservative $3000.
Build a sales team: 3 people x 150 a month = $450 a month.
Pay your team: 3 x $2000 monthly salary = $6000 a month.

You could cover your sales team operational costs for approx. 2 1/2 months and build a great website. Alternatively, you could do a commission plus draw system or strictly commission and save yourself a bunch of money operating easily for a year.

Maybe I'm overreaching here and I apologize if this doesn't fit your views but I'm surprised with all the talk of self improvement on RvF so many people are focusing on small time shit like making passive income vs. simply building a business and becoming a millionaire (easier than it sounds I know.) Anyways... this isn't the fastlane forum.

Peace.

Post: #24

^^I think the hardest thing is to find the appropriate market and how to best service that market. I appreciate and respect your ambitions, I would like to have that type of situation, however, there is a capital matter and I not comfortable betting a decent amount of change to support overhead if I am not sure about the underlying business.

Post: #25

And that's the reason most people won't be successful online, or not online for that matter. There's a lot of cheerleaders on the forum that say "go online and collect monthly cheques it's easy" but unless you create a SaaS website or create a large blog where you pay for content to be created, you're going to be invested into the business at least part time.

I've had the privilege to have lived with a couple entrepreneurs that were making 5 figures monthly, and it changed the way I see things. Again, maybe we have different dreams, but if you're an entrepreneur "not comfortable" is a mindset you need to shed. Elon Musk said that starting a company is like "Staring into the abyss and chewing glass." With that said, you can still start companies like me... bootstrap.

It's cheaper than ever to start a business, unless you're going into something like a product. As for finding your target market, just think to yourself "when have I wasted my time or been frustrated with inefficient business practices?" You don't have to reinvent the wheel, sometimes you can make a lot of money just by changing the tire.

Remember "It's not about who did it first it's about who did it right." Just take an idea, improve upon it and sell. Or combine two ideas like I did - an example is Keurig, or peanut butter and chocolate spread in one... lol there's lot's of examples but I'm drawing a blank. The good businesses can be the brick and mortar ones. If you were to start an online business as the sole distributor of wholesale X item in a niche space, you'd kill it if you cornered the market. My friend that's making 5 figures is in a very niche market, but there's still tons of potential.

The best businesses are the ones with recurring monthly income (in a niche service).. subscription. He has approx. 150 users that pay a monthly fee of 60 or 100 dollars, and this accounts for about 11-15k residual. Lots to think about. He runs a niche website builder if you're curious. He made one framework for professionals that need to have an online presence, has customized it for easy building, charges less than competitors for a superior product, outsources the website development and has 2 or 3 employees. He's on track to make 350k this year.

Sometimes you just have to think inside the box.