Halx

Here are a few ideas off the top of my head... can you name some of your own?

- Start an online store and sell stuff. (e-commerce)
- Become a day trader. (stock market)
- Hone a craft and sell your product. (arts)
- Prostitution/Porn (sex)
- Research local musical artists and become their agent. (entertainment)
- Freelance computer/network maintenance and consulting (technology)

Maybe someone who has done it can give their story. I'd be excited to hear any stories or advice from someone who has been there before.

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Daniel_

I was going to say "become an author" but I guess that's covered under your hone your craft option.

You have left off one - "Recognise your skills, and sell them to a company that needs them (get a job)", although I suspect that goes against the grain of "for yourself".

Thinking about my trade, the option "Go freelance (become a consultant)" comes to mind in technical fields.

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Reese

I tried prostitution for a few days but had no customers so I gave up.

I've made some side income with computer repair. You can undercut every repair shop and still make a large profit. Most problems take less than an hour to diagnose and a few hours to fix but you can still make $100+ on a job. Biggest hurdle is getting customers. A few fliers in local convenience stores helps and even better if you have a good central, easy to find location for people to drop off computers. Initial investment is relatively small, You'll want to have some spare parts laying around and some money on hand to buy parts that you're installing/reselling. It's easy work, most of the time you can play a game or watch TV while something is installing/scanning.

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Halx

Anyone else ever build their life from the ground up? Ever gotten fed up waiting for someone to like their resume? Ever quit it all (or lost it all) and decided to just go for their dreams of working for themselves?

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Cynthetiq

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speshul-k

I guess this comes under craft in a way but turning a hobby into a viable business either, using the internet as a customer base or trying your hand in the real world is always a fantastic resource when it comes to income. For many its a pipe dream but if you can really make it work for you then the rewards are there!

dlish

i did that. i worked for myself. started my own construction company back home. wasnt what i envisioned it to iibe.

worked far too hard, for far too many hours a day for too much time. i became an insomniac along the way.

big learning experience that i dont regret, but something im not too keen to try again very soon. its part of the reason why i decided to move to another country. i was just fed up.

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ratbastid

I've been self-employed since being laid off in 2004. Although it was a shock (I was actively journaling here at the time, so you can read all about it), it was the best thing that could have happened. Working for myself is hard in ways that being a salaried employee isn't, but the rewards are of an entirely different order as well.

dlish

i just thought id say that even though my experience wasnt all good, its not to deter anyone.

ill try again one day.. so dont let my negativity stop you!

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ngdawg

The arts is dependent on the economy and the desires of the public. If all you do is string beads and for ten years made a decent living, then suddenly someone comes out with strings of noodles that the public goes nuts for, you're SOL as a bead stringer.
While most services and goods are dependent on a fickle public, none more so that Art. This includes music, visual arts, fashion, etc.
The dependency on a good economy also is paramount. Given the choice between food and a nice painting, most middle class would choose the food.
"Starving Artist" is a cliche`ed reality. The materials needed just to create cost and, unless one is within the most elite of their craft, being in the hole is a fact of life.
In the over 4 years that I've been active in my chosen field, I have probably made about $3000 freelance(the full time job is in this field but my work belongs to the studio). Subtract cameras and equipment(two grand or more), printing supplies, printer, finishing supplies such as matting and framing and show fees and it's pretty clear I'm not in it for the money.

Supple Cow

You can invent things and allow more enterprising people to make the money for you by having them work for you.

I also like to believe you can have a great idea that doesn't involve selling your stuff and make yourself into an agent for change on the internet and in the world. I'll report back on this one in a couple of months (with evidence, I hope).

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little_tippler

In the arts there's lots of niches that you can appropriate for yourself to make a living. It's a fickle business but one where there is a lot of money if you have a good idea and know the right people.

I have started a couple of businesses with friends (which isn't always a good idea) but in the first case I decided to leave (because it involved teaching, and because I didn't agree with my friend on how the business should develop), and in the second the project never came to full fruition (though I still have it in my head and think it's a good idea). Both were connected to the arts.

For the past years I have done some freelance work, where you are not exactly your own boss but your time is your own, which is a good medium to me. Also you only take on the work you know you will do well.

The arts involve some risk but they also give you a freedom you can't have in many other areas, which I love.

I would love to be my own boss...or to at least feel I have the power to change things for the better.

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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

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vanblah

Not to jack this thread too far from its intent, I would say that there is a fine line between arts and entertainment. Artists always seem to struggle, but entertainers not so much. Even in a bad economy people still want to be entertained. In the 6 years since I started my current band I've spent WAY more than I've earned. If I was in a "Top 40" cover band I could easily quit my day job and make a decent living playing the casinos and private parties. Art vs. Entertainment. Of course, at some point you would hope that YOUR art would become the entertainment that people are looking for.

Cynthetiq

I've been thinking about this for years and here's where my divide is.

Make a living, isn't the same as having a lifestyle.

I can easily make a living in Las Vegas and own a 1 bedroom condo working at McDonald's.

My mother in law is an artist and she barely makes enough. When she sold her home outside of Boston she made a windfall and that netted her some better income for a few years. She likes the lifestyle she has now in comparison.

So I've figured out what the lifestyle is that I want to have, and I've been trying to figure out how to fund it. Right now, it's working a job. But in return, we get a lifestyle that many of you know we have.

Because we know we want to do more of this lifestyle, I've been trying to figure out how to make passive income. The best income I receive isn't my salary from my job. No, it is the monthly rent that arrives from my investment properties. I go to the mailbox and I get paid. I don't have to do anything really. Someone else manages the property and I pay them a percentage of the rent. I can get paid living in LA, NY, Milan, Madrid, Singapore.

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Tully Mars

I'v had several businesses over the years. Often more then one at a time, while working full time. Right after college I had been told I'd get a promotion, didn't happen. Voter passed a property tax cut and the job I was going to promote into disappeared. So to pay for student loans I started cleaning chimneys, which in Oregon requires you to obtain a contractors license. Once I had the license I started taking on other jobs. At first installing wood, pellet and gas stoves. Then I ended up building my own house which lead to a couple other houses. After the third house I decided that was too much with another full time job and went back to chimneys and stove installs. But somewhere along the way I got started installing garage doors. Then Dish Network Sat. TV systems. One day while installing a header to a garage door I dropped the beam on my leg and foot, crushing it. So 12 months on my back and lots of time on my hands I tried to start an on-line business selling GPS's, fish finders, two way radios- basically outdoor sporting goods electronics. This went nowhere and I never made a dime. So one Christmas I put some locally made Christmas Wreaths on-line. This went somewhere and fast. I ended up having to turn my entire 24X40 shop into a wreath shipping facility every Oct. to mid Dec. Several years I made more in those 2 1/2 months then I did at my full time job all year.

You just never know whats going to work.

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dirtyrascal7

As soon as I read the title of this thread, I thought of an article I once read on Steve Pavlina's blog called "10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job". It would be the ultimate to have a website that generated revenue 24/7 whether you were "working" or not. Obviously, if this were easy to pull off, everyone would be doing it... but the idea of not having to trade your time for money in some sort of predetermined ratio really appeals to me.

I think that if anyone is going to start a small business or try to support themselves without a traditional job (whether you're consulting, creating art/music, making furniture in your garage, or writing a blog), you need to find a niche. Focus on one specific problem or need and figure out how to solve it and make money from it.

Even huge successful companies started with one idea that they did exceptionally well and then built on that. Google is a great example... they focused only on making their search engine the best, then expanded and developed other products like maps, email, photo sharing, etc. and integrated all of them together.

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speshul-k

I always come back to the Google example with Brin and Page as two people who took a very simple but focussed idea and built so much from literally nothing.

They are inspirational as much as they are to be admired for what they've done.

Search is king.

Redjake

I've seriously considered (and still am) starting a business doing something with technology. I have a ton of ideas in my head, and I think some of them would have a shot.

The reason I never pull the trigger is because I always end up putting together a spreadsheet that would show how much income I would have to pull in order to stay afloat and I get really discouraged.

I am making a decent salary right now, and I don't see how someone with a relatively small idea could make it. I know that sounds cowardly, but with debt, it's not just "oh well, that business didn't work, let's start over" - you are stuck with thousands of dollars of debt. Whenever I already have nearly $30k in student loans, the last thing I want is more debt.

It's so difficult to branch off of the salary and do your own thing!

Does anyone have any experience with starting a business, and it going completely sour? How did you recoop? Did anyone here end up with a large amount of debt because of it? How did you handle that?

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Charlatan

One of the things I have learned about myself is that I do not want to work for myself. I don't have the entrepreneurial drive to run my own business.

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ngdawg

I've read a few essays from these entrepreneurs and what they all do to make their money is A) sell books and articles about how to make money and B) have umpteen websites, newsletters and blogs with ads. They get paid for clicks on those ads.
My itty bitty site has Google's Adsense and I've amassed a whopping $42.22 since February. They don't send a check til you hit $100. In averaging $8 a month, I figure to make something I could at least pay a few bills with, I'd have to have about 50 sites and to be able to actually live off something like that, maybe 300. Of course, the more traffic, the more clicks so if my site was actually being seen, I wouldn't need to build 49 more. And regardless of what these people are saying about no work, big checks, they are maintaining sites and blogs to generate income.
Ain't nothing free....

dirtyrascal7

I think you're misunderstanding me.

I didn't mean that those people don't work. That simply isn't true. However, even when they're not working, their websites are still generating revenue because the internet never closes down like a bricks-and-mortar store. If you work a 9-5 job, you're only making money from 9am to 5pm. But with a successful website, you're making money 24/7 even if you only work to maintain and update the website 4 or 6 or 8 hours a day.

And it isn't just these "how to make money" bloggers that use this scheme to create income. All of the thousands of political blogs, celebrity gossip blogs, dating blogs, news blogs, humor blogs, etc. have the same profit-generating structure.

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"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

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ngdawg

That's for sure. And there are sites that use that income generated with click-thrus that pay contributors, ie; Helium.
I've always thought TFP should attempt it-you can choose where to place the ads, how large an area, etc.-but it might not set well with many.

snowy

I'm my own boss. I'm a nanny/professional babysitter. I don't make obscene amounts of money, but I make enough to fund my current lifestyle, as Cyn said. My investment? Well, I didn't pay anything for it the last time, but I will have to pay for it this time around--I got my CPR/First Aid cards for adults, children, and infants. I took child development and psychology classes when I was in university, mostly to set myself apart from other childcare workers. Childcare workers are a dime a dozen, and so completing certifications and learning about child development--and showing prospective clients that you have done these things for the sake of better caring for their kids--it says something. It says I take myself seriously as a childcare worker, that I am more than just your average babysitter. Thus, I can charge more

Eventually I want to go back to school and get my 2-year ECE degree or else go on to study the Montessori Method and train to be a guide. Either way, my ultimate goal is to open my own preschool, wherein I am in charge of the curriculum, how it is taught, and who teaches it. I will still be my own boss.

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Tully Mars

I remember being very young and my father would watch 60 Minutes like some religious event every Sunday night. One night Mike Wallace was doing a segment on mail order scams. Of the two examples I recall he covered was a guy who placed an ad in the back of magazines claiming for $5 he'd send you a copper engraved image of Abe Lincoln. Which he did, he sent you a penny. Another guy claimed in a ad he'd show you how to have you mail box receive cash nearly everyday. All you had to do was send him $15 and he'd send you details on how to make this happen. Once he got your cash he sent you a small instruction sheet where he suggested you take out an ad and ask people to send you $15, for that $15 you then send them the instructions he just sent you.

If I remember right neither of these guys were busted, they didn't make any claims they didn't deliver on.

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777

In my regard, I'm being certified as a machinist this Nov. so that I can have a stable income. After that, I want to take advantage of all these foreclosures near univercities to rent the rooms to college kids. Cha-ching!

dirtyrascal7

One of my dad's best friends does this. He started small and eventually collected a huge mass of apartments and rental houses... he barely works at all anymore.

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mixedsubstance

I currently do 1 (ebay), and am focusing on beginning my venture into 3 (painting/wine charms) but maybe in the future I'd do 2 (trade). My profile may say I am already 4 in a sense (Smelly Pirate Hooker), but 5 I've never thought about and 6....nah...even though I could, I wouldnt want to deal with stupid people who cause the sh** to break anyway....

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