After 26 Failed Ideas I'm Finally Making A Living With My Side Projects
What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?
I have a Bcom degree in Informatics but while studying I started dabbling in Yahoo Geocities where the site-building bug bit. There was no looking back.
After a short romance with Adobe Flash and Dreamweaver, I discovered WordPress and that set the stage for a good decade of spinning up WP sites for clients all over the globe.
However, I was always building little projects/tools/apps on the side - scratching my little itches - one being a collection of Single Page websites to convince my clients they didn't need a 5-page website.
Fast forward to a few years ago, and after a TON of experimentation with various monetization, I leaped full-time maker as my side project income surpassed my Cape Town expenses.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
So no day is the same but I can honestly say every day I wake stoked to dive straight into my work. I'm the only one in the way of what I want to archive in this online journey, so it's time to get going.
After a coffee and rusk (kinda like a fat South African biscuit), it's usually 10hrs of screentime curating content, replying to emails, tweaking my sites, overthinking, wireframing ideas, and chatting to side-project friends around the globe.
I'm not big on talking about revenue, but my passive income on my sites is more than my expenses so things are rad.
Freedom and flexibility are very important to me and right now so I am not looking to aggressively grow revenue or a team. I'm quite happy working solo while outsourcing what I need.
Next up for me is online education with a course and some YouTube vids planned for 2022.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
You should browse out my project graveyard) filled with all my failed side-project ideas. I hope the graveyard inspires you to take risks and work on those passion projects. It’s ok to fail. Every side project I launched provided lessons for the next and in turn helped me quit freelance.
There are so many lessons and I'm blogging about a lot of them here but 2 come to mind as I write this:
1 - Working in public creates a buzz around your product and no question influences its launch positively. If anything, just hitting upload on a behind-the-scene screencast influences the way you feel about it. You see it under a different light when you are out there being vulnerable - it's healthy.
2 - My best results are when I did something consistently over a long period. Aim long game with small consistent shipping. My most successful side-project has added 8,000 One Page websites. The second most successful side-project involved publishing a Landing Page tip for 100 days. I rocked up every day. The competition lost steam.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
Check out the full breakdown of my workspace, hardware, and software spanning my network of projects.
I've also recently added transparency pages (running costs, startup costs, domain costs, behind-the-scenes blogs) to all my side-projects.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I get a lot of my inspiration offline from traveling, surfing, hiking, and birdwatching.
Not listening to Podcasts but don't miss a Hospital Records episode. I'm a punk rock guy, but getting more into DnB to work at. It's like Punk Rock without lyrics, right?
Also not into books but I've devoured everything by Derek Sivers. If you are into his stuff, you should give my podcast ep a spin with him - we have a blast, the guy is a legend.
YouTube wise I'm seriously into Hot Ones, it's the only channel I watch regularly. Oh, and when I'm shattered from work and find myself needing to get my mind off things, I tend to watch Penn & Tellers ``Fool Us' ' Magic Shows - which is weird I know but I can't get enough of being tricked.
Jeepers while we are here, if my gf is away and I have a full wildcard I'll try to dig up the darkest horror I can find. I crave being absolutely terrified and then returning to Earth. This strangely enough keeps me inspired too.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
There is a ton of competition now with no coders spinning up MVPs all day so you need to be passionate about a side-project for it to succeed.
You'll also understand the needed UX as you are using it daily but also adding content or working on it is not a chore. You have the steam to work weekends as it's fun. This will give you the edge.
Where can we go to learn more?
Website or [email protected] or @robhope on Twitter - thanks for having me!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
