Hobby to Job

[Kate]

For those of you who consider this (web publishing) thier main job, what made you make the transition between hobby and job?

(Sorry if this thread has been done before, it just intrests me.)

[thebillionaire]

im guessing money was a big factor when ur like chris or andy make $400,000+ a year you dont have time to do a job for someone else, but I think chris started before he made alot. I make crap so I'm not sure

[Cutter]

For me once I realised I could really make money it became a job. I've been designing web pages for years -- my first back in 1996 I think. Back then that was a hobby. If I only would have realised ;)

[thebillionaire]

I guess I kinda take as work too, part time because I know I can make alot

[Peter T Davis]

For me it was the confluence of several events in my life. Having a kid changed my outlook on life, it was no longer acceptible to me to be out of the house 50-60 hours a week at work. You absolutely cannot beat spending several afternoons per week with your kid outside in the park on a sunny summer day. Also, the tech company I was working for had a precipitous drop in revenue and I choose to be laid off rather than accept a pay cut. I never really liked having a boss anyway and consider my employment history as a sort of apprenticeship where I observed how successful entrepreneurs conducted themselves. Around the same time I started to figure out how easy it was to put together a decent website and start making some revenue from it. I never had any doubt that I'd end up making my own business, the only question I had was what would the nature of the business be, I think I have that sorted now.

[Mike Hunt]

For me it was the confluence of several events in my life. Having a kid changed my outlook on life, it was no longer acceptible to me to be out of the house 50-60 hours a week at work. You absolutely cannot beat spending several afternoons per week with your kid outside in the park on a sunny summer day. Also, the tech company I was working for had a precipitous drop in revenue and I choose to be laid off rather than accept a pay cut. I never really liked having a boss anyway and consider my employment history as a sort of apprenticeship where I observed how successful entrepreneurs conducted themselves. Around the same time I started to figure out how easy it was to put together a decent website and start making some revenue from it. I never had any doubt that I'd end up making my own business, the only question I had was what would the nature of the business be, I think I have that sorted now.
Gee, you sound like a bum.

[Billyray]

Gee, you sound like a bum.
more like a role model for me :)

[Mike Hunt]

I guess if you have low expectations...

[MarkB]

You're living up to your name, I see.

[Mike Hunt]

Gee, how clever. :rolleyes:

[MarkB]

Why thankyou :)

[Westech]

I make enough online now that I could afford to quit my day job. I'm too chicken to do it because I'm not sure how steady the website revenue will be. It's a little intimidating to quit a great job and depend fully on my online earnings to support my family. If I were unmarried, didn't have a mortgage to pay, or didn't currently have a good job then I'd go fully self-employed in a second.

As things are now, I plan on doing the following before I consider quitting the day job:

1. Wait until my online earnings have steadily matched or exceeded my day-job earnings for one full year
2. Save up one year's worth of day-job salary - just in case things go bad
3. Diversify into at least one other website that earns significant income and gets its revenue from different advertisers/methods than the first

Aside from the financial security, there are pros and cons to keeping the day job. On the plus side, I can save or re-invest a lot of what I make online, thus providing excellent cash flow for growing my business. The drawback is that I don't have nearly enough time to do all that I want with my websites. If I had more time I feel that I could grow my sites and my earnings much more quickly. I love my job, but it can be very frustrating to spend 8+ hours a day working to solve someone else's problems while thinking of several things that you could be doing to grow your own business if you had the time.

[michael_gersitz]

Westech, are those all the sites you make income off of?

[Westech]

Westech, are those all the sites you make income off of?

You mean the ones in my signature? Crazy Monkey Games is my main website earner. I also make a little from a few sites that I'm keeping under wraps until they grow a little more. I also have a small hosting business that targets my local market. I've run it since before I ever found this forum and considered creating any content sites. It helps boost the online income, but I'm thinking of gradually phasing it out since it takes up quite a bit more of my time than the websites do.

[michael_gersitz]

Wes,

Man, I just checked out Crazy Monkey Games, at first glance I thought it was just a standard games site, that there are thoasands of already. But you really did some nice work customizing it, adding great pages, which explained everything I wanted to know about your site and more. Your sponsorship program is freaken awesome. The downloading content looks like urgames and games2go and gamesforyourwebsite. Dunno why it reminded me of that, but oh well. Great Site.

[Westech]

Thanks! There are a lot more improvements in the works but, as stated in my post above, I'm a little short on the time I need to implement them. Hopefully I'll find the time soon.

[r2d2]

I'm pretty much the same place as Westech, except I'm not quite making enough yet each month to leave work.

Intend to grow though, and eventually be able to 'give up the day job'. I like the idea of waiting till web earnings are over employee earnings for a year. I might borrow that goal/idea if you dont mind :)

[Mike Hunt]

Why thankyou :)
Read this VERY carefully. Try to understand it. (http://www.answers.com/sarcasm&r=67)

[moonshield]

Read this VERY carefully. Try to understand it. (http://www.answers.com/sarcasm&r=67)

Read the following very carefully... *** wipe.

[Mike Hunt]

Read the following very carefully... *** wipe.
LOL, good one.

[MarkB]

Oh, I understand sarcasm. I also realise you're just trolling. Have fun!

[Cutter]

I think its worth pointing out that being employeed by someone else isn't exactly more secure than being self-employeed. If all your income comes from one source you are in a risky position whether it is your employer or Adsense.

[thebillionaire]

yea good point, atleast when ur working for your self you can make all the important decision, if your working and ur manager screws up then you might end up paying with ur job, so in a way working for some one else may be alot more risky then yourself

[Westech]

That's true; however I'm in a somewhat less risky position than others as I'm employed by a public University.

[Cutter]

The same is probably true for people with government jobs; don't think I could ever enjoy myself at either, I'll take the risk ;)

[moonshield]

it matters what your government job is. If it were as a federal judge, I would take that job in a heartbeat.

[MarkB]

As soon as I can afford to give up the day job (and have a backup pool of money for security), I'm ditching it as fast as I can. Being a wage slave is no fun. :)

[Blue Cat Buxton]

I echo tha sentiment Mark (Hope the Boss isn't looking!)

[The New Guy]

Westech does your wife work? Mabye you could teach her how to run a few of your websites to give you some more free time.

[Westech]

Yes, she works full time and goes to school part time just like me, so she doens't have much free time either. She's not really all that technically oriented when it comes to websites, but she's almost finished with her MBA and she's very organized and pretty good with Excel. I think I almost have her convinced to help me out by keeping the books. :)

[The New Guy]

You have a family, a job, a hobby/job and go to school? Hows that ulcer coming ;)

[Westech]

Well, the family just consists of my wife and I for now so it's not all that bad. I couldn't imagine trying to do all this while taking care fo kids... Still, the ulcer's coming along nicely! Thanks for asking. :)

Seriously though, it's stressful at times but not all that bad. I'm able to keep up with everything that I HAVE to do to keep it all going. Sometimes I have to compromise on things I WANT to do to such as build up the websites and teach adjunct courses.

Overall it's worthwhile because I know that in a year or so I'll have my Masters degree and a very successful business. That's when all of the hard work will pay off. If all goes according to plan I'll be able to work from home (usually less than 40 hours per week), take time off whenever I want to travel, go to the kids' soccer games, school plays, etc., teach as many or as few adjunct courses as I want, and just generally live life according to my terms instead of someone else's. I think it's worth working my butt off for a couple of years to get there.

[MarkB]

Nice one, Westech. Best of luck with it :)

[r2d2]

Ah, hehe. I'm also working, and doing a MSc part-time :)

Not quite married yet, but it feels like it :rolleyes: Just kidding ;) Hope she's not reading this ;)

Good luck with your course too, what are you doing? Do you ever wonder if its worth doing the Masters if you are planning on quitting work in the near future? Maybe its an MBA so will always be useful? Mines in Digital Signal Processing, so not much use in web design :rolleyes:

[Westech]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

I'm working on an MS in Management Information Systems. For me the degree is definitely worth it because it will allow me to teach more college-level IT courses. I've done a few part-time in the past and really enjoyed it. I plan to continue teaching in the future even if (when?) I become extremely wealthy. :D Plus, it's a good way to make extra money on the side to supplement the online income.

[John]

I'm in kind of the same situation as you guys. I have two fulltime jobs, a newborn daughter, a girlfriend (basically my wife) and I'm trying to get my sites off the ground. It's not fun trying to juggle everything but hopefully once I get some projects off the ground I'll be able to earn a decent income from them and can leave one of my jobs, which would give me more time to work on other projects.

[thebillionaire]

well im busy too, I usually get time to work online at 10pm, 9-3:30 school, one hour to eat and relax, then its like 5-9(sometimes 10) homework, then after being free I try to work some more, I get all the manditory task's done but when it comes to expanding its almost impossible over the weekdays. But I'm trying to work my *** off right now because I dont have to pay any taxes until im out of university(expect when u get out the canadian taxes are so high that ur screwed :) ), but if I can expand my site alot before graduating from uni then I wont lose much money, im still in highschool so I have a few years before leaving university

[Kate]

Well for me it's - school - 8.30 - 3.00, work (I have a part-time job as a check out chick, how hounarble :P) - 3.30 - 8.30 then homework (which is my website at the moment) from then till when I feel like sleeping.
The assigment with the website is due tomorrow, gotta pray google doesn't put the 'Punk Sex' ad on my site again during my presentation :P.

[r2d2]

I know you did ask about this before, but did anyone suggest putting that site in the 'Competitive Ad Filter'? That way it wont show ads for that site.

[Kate]

Was suggested, but it isn't actually a site. I click on the link and it takes me to a page on google saying "There are no ads for this catagory."

[Blue Cat Buxton]

You need some 'explanation' in case it does - like this stuff happens and there are these ways to prevent it - and everything you have done - use it to your advantage

I was doing a presentation of a database front end system on a clients system on their dial up connection and these pop up messages kept showing "Hi im Mandy looking for fun in your area..." or something like that.

It brought a chuckle from the audience, but was a bit annoying after the third or so time!

Hope your presentation goes well tomorrow

[James]

I always find those ads creepy, where they show girls that are supposedly from your own town. I understand they can tell where I live based on my browsing information, but just the fact that it says Abbotsford on there irks me a bit.

[Kate]

You need some 'explanation' in case it does - like this stuff happens and there are these ways to prevent it - and everything you have done - use it to your advantage

I was doing a presentation of a database front end system on a clients system on their dial up connection and these pop up messages kept showing "Hi im Mandy looking for fun in your area..." or something like that.

It brought a chuckle from the audience, but was a bit annoying after the third or so time!

Hope your presentation goes well tomorrow

Good idea. Thanks. I am very nervous about it as I hate public speaking. I usually end up laughing hysterically about nothing and not be able to stop.

Should be interesting, googles added some more nice ads to my site - Punk Personals, Gay Punk and Punk ***. Lovely. It seems to be a hit and miss thing, 50 percent of the time the ads a clean and the other 50 percent is those mentioned ads. I have bad luck, I know what 50 percent I will get.

[chromate]

I don't know how you feel about this idea, but you could capture an image of some google ads on your site that you think are suitable, and then use that image in place of the AdSense code. That way you obviously wont be risking any bad ads showing up and it'll look exactly like normal adsense ads.

[MarkB]

Genius man :)

[Kate]

I don't know how you feel about this idea, but you could capture an image of some google ads on your site that you think are suitable, and then use that image in place of the AdSense code. That way you obviously wont be risking any bad ads showing up and it'll look exactly like normal adsense ads.

Awesome idea.

[thebillionaire]

wont, work google serve's so many ads that most people's ad click are probably finidh in a day to a week, that will require constant editing. I like it as it is, except the payment which can be very low at times, hopefully yahoo publisher pay's more

[James]

wont, work google serve's so many ads that most people's ad click are probably finidh in a day to a week, that will require constant editing.
What in the world are you talking about? She's doing this as a project in school. I believe an image would be perfectly suited to the situation; even if it's just a quick edit just before the presentation.

[Kate]

Did the presentation today. Did the images idea then changed it back once it was over. Presentation wasn't as bad as I thought it would be :).

[MarkB]

Hoorah! :)

[James]

Hazaah!

Congrats on it going well. Have you heard how well they thought you did on it?

[Kate]

Thanks.

Nope, won't find out till the end of the year.

Did get some "warm/cool" feedback though -
Warm - Good standard of work for year 9 or something along those lines. And they also enjoyed abusing my 'Build A Punk' game.
Cool - Need to use more self-confidence when presentating.

[MarkB]

Yeah, presentations were never my strong-suit in High School either (I failed them all, basically!); funny, I always enjoyed it when I was in primary school. :)

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Well done, at least it is over :)

[James]

Cool - Need to use more self-confidence when presentating.
Yeah, being an obnoxious *** like myself helps with certain things like this.

I really have always somewhat enjoyed public speaking. When doing it, I pay close attention to how I'm presenting:
- reading speed
- how much I'm depending on the cards so that I don't have to look at the class
- am I panning my head from left to right to left (while keeping the motion natural), to make sure that I'm keeping the class attentive?
By doing this I've always gotten high B's/A's (CA-style) in public speaking.

[chromate]

Presentation wasn't as bad as I thought it would be :).

That tends to be the way. I used to hate giving presentations in both school and uni. But they ALWAYS turned out better than I thought they would.

[deronsizemore]

I wouldnt' call myself a "web publisher" yet, just cause I have no sites online making money currently. I'd love to be making enough from some sites to support myself and my family here say within the next few years or so. I've got tons of ideas, just havn't started them yet.

[MarkB]

Best time to start is now, mate! :)

[Cutter]

Agreed, don't just say the next few years, make those things happen today.

[deronsizemore]

Well I am working dilligently (spelling?) to get some of my ideas up and running. The "three years" part was just me hopeing to start making some decent money by then. I don't figure I'll blow it out of the water as soon as some of my site are online, so I figure three years is a good number to work for a good profit.

[mini]

My boyfriend does it because he loves it so much and for the money. To diversify his income, he invested on a hosting business, a web design business (employing others of course, he just manage it) and some shares. We live together (I only see him on fri night - sunday due to my work) and I work full time as a consultant. He tried to get me to do some web publishing for him, I went crazy. I hate working from home and not seeing many people. My current job involves lots of travelling and meeting people so web publishing's definetely not for me.