Money, Outside of interwebz. . . do you?

[dirtydancing]

So do any of you generate any income off the web not including W2 employment?

I've been looking for a while about trying to generate multiple streams of income so that I can leave my job. The problem that I see is that you either needs lots of money to start a business, or my ideas aren't scalable enough to make it worth my effort.

I keep revisiting the same idea, but nothing comes to mind, or I feel that I have missed the boat on some opportunities.

So, what do you all do?

 

[HaraldrPinkHair]

You don't really need a lot of capital to start a business.
I don't know what you're good at, what your skills or training are, but use your knowledge to look around the web and the local area if your skills is viable. It most likely is, but look at competition in your area, if you've got a chance.
Where I live, there a lot of tradesmen in my profession, so I wouldn't be able to beat them easily. However, since I dislike and have not got experience in my profession, I went into IM. So far, not profitable for me, but it's because I'm a piece of shit.
So yeah, look around. There should be something to be had, even if buying local stuff cheap and selling online would be something, which I again never did so far

 

[HostZealot]

One of the ways of getting afloat is writing content. All you need for it is some common sense, Internet and fluent English. You should not write articles for different portals, you should find an agency people order from and enlist there as a writer. Most of these have tests to determine if you can do things right and the best agencies have in-house training to make you a good writer.

General idea looks like that - You are given a task to write an article with "baby stroller" keyword, i.e. What do you know on the topic? Nearly 0 if you are not a breastfeeding mother (and just a little more if you are) . But God gave us brains and Sergey Brin gave us Google for a reason. Take the keyword you need to use and search for it. Read top 5-10 articles Google shows you in results - it will take no longer than 30 minutes. Then write your own while you remember what was written. With time and practice you will write decent articles, but rewriting top content will suffice for a start. Submit and article and get paid, and you can forget everything you just read about the strollers and begin working on new task.

Most popular topics will be dieting, healthy nutrition, weight loss & supplements, pregnancy advices, yoga for beginners and description of new mobile devices, according to my trusted friend who is earning for a living this way.

While you gain experience by writing on various topics, you will understand which of them appeal most for you. Try to concentrate on these, read popular content and guides from other writers\bloggers - and refine your style. With time you will become either a fast-writing pro for any niche or a specialized writer for a certain niche. Once your content becomes really good, either your agency will assign you to better projects or customers will find your contacts on their own and you will geet a freelance job which often becomes full-time - if you wish it.

This worked for many people I know and I do not see any reason it would not work for you. Patience, dedication and zero tolerance to procrastination. Well, these are needed in any business, so it applies to all cases.

Just don't apply for freelancer, elance, odesk or other portals like that. Indians with poor English roll there en masse and you will not be noticed in the crowd.

 

[andrewkar]

My 2c. You shouldn't be looking totally out of internet if you have already some good knowledge of it (not saying you are successful or another Frank Kern etc....).

My example.

By the profession I'm just simple Waiter (yes, we have schools like that in Poland...) and Food Technologist also. I have spent about 15 years in that niche as a waiter, cook, supervisor and finally manager (actually I have had three propositions for taking management of some really nice restaurants in London but, I have declined all of them...).

So, I have some knowledge that can be very useful to restaurant's owners.

That's why I decided to run my own restaurant marketing business. Because I have experienced things on my own skin, I'm able to give owners and management some good ropes.

I know that stuff is the KEY to the profits. I have seen stuff KILLING new businesses because owners weren't careful enough (and stuff just didn't care ...)

So, I'm sure you have some kind of expertise in some niche already, where you can use it online successfully to make good $.

Just try to bring two worlds together (offline and online) and you can make some nice $ out of it.