some call it autopiloting or passive income. it’s a way of generating income for some work you did previously - through sales, clicks, surveys, affiliates etc.
as designer you have to work with a client and design things to get paid. however i’m looking for a way to generate income if you don’t feel like working or simply want to take a break.
what i’ve tried:
getting people to complete surveys (no one likes surveys). big dislike for this. I don’t like to force someone to complete a survey. money wasn’t so bad.
affiliates. conversion rate is terrible (1% maybe). well you’ll earn something if you have like 30k affiliates.
interesting but oversaturated (haven’t tried this):
selling t-shirt designs
dropshipping (heard about this, i have no idea what it is?)
envato, etsy, creative market for design stuff… (idk but I don’t think the sales are good there)
blogging (adsense or sell things)
youtube (adsense, sell things etc)
photography?
what i’m interested in, my skills:
design, drawing
coding (no envato please, there are already superb websites for sale, not even close to keep up here)
maybe some tutorials, but I think this is oversaturated
well you can say all methods work, it depends how much time and money (?) you invest in it.
however i’m looking for a more lucrative way… any ideas, suggestions, something, websites?
Anything easy will have already been done to the point to where there’s little to no money to be made.
For passive income, I host customer’s websites that I have completed. This also ensures that I remain the go-to for these people if they need something new. Sometimes dealing with these people can be annoying.
I have also sold Wordpress templates in the past. At one point you could have done this full time, but now there’s enough free content out there that small companies will use, and large companies probably wont be using Wordpress.
Both of these require various levels of technical know-how.
I’ve thought about setting up online stores, either self-hosted or thru a service like Etsy, to sell photographs and letterpress posters. I typically don’t photograph things like flowers and sunsets, not that there is anything wrong with photographing flowers and sunsets. The point I’m making is I’m not sure how much demand there would be for a photograph of the walls, old buildings, and signs that capture my eye. As for the posters, I’ve designed a number of posters in the past that I thought would look fantastic printed on a letterpress. The rub with both of these is that there are a lot of people already doing this. If I could establish myself in a niche, I suppose that would help.
I am slowly working on an app with a friend. I think it has commercial viability. The trouble is that we both keep plenty busy with our day jobs, so it’s a slow, back burner sort of thing.
same here, i have an idea for a website (community), which I think should cope very good (there isn’t something similar currently). however it requires lot’s of investment, needs an own customized cms, active admins = means I must hire at least 1 person in the beginning, maybe more later etc etc. no one guarantees that your website will be successful, so there is always a risk of failure…
i’m not that kind of person that can organize things, i’m terrible at it, so i’m not sure about this.
if I had lots of money I would try it lol. I work hard to earn money, so even 500$ is a big investment for me…
More than half my income is passive income. It takes a long time (I’ve been around for a long time), but real estate purchases, stock investments and money coming in from type designs done over the years really starts to add up. It’s pretty much going to be a big part of how I finance my retirement in a few short years.
I know a guy who owned a company I once worked at. I remember a discussion I had with him where he mentioned that he always wanted to be a designer. When I asked him why he never pursued it, he said it was because this field has a fatal, deal-killing flaw.
He basically explained that it seemed a bit stupid to him to create a custom solution to something, sell it once, then start over again on a new one-of-a-kind thing to sell once.
According to him, with a little more energy, it is far better to spend that effort on creating something that can be sold a million times with little additional effort, then start over on another project that can also be sold a million times. I could hardly argue with him since he had done exactly that and made far more money than I ever will.
thanks @PrintDriver and @Just-B
real estate is interesting. but sounds like an expensive venture costing thousands of dollars.
however, it seems like you can’t lose by investing in real estate. rental property is always high on demand.
no wonder your friend is a successful businessman. great advice, thanks.
i probably have enough money to try something new and take a year off. I should focus on things you can sell many times.