Niall Doherty's Blog, page 166

Amazon FBA: How It Works

Running an Amazon FBA business is one of the ways to make money online.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service provided by Amazon to sellers to automate their order fulfillment and shipping services.

As a seller, you can let Amazon handle all shipping, including returns and refunds, as well as storing products in Amazon’s warehouses, picking, packing, customer service, and more.

As long as you handle the sales and make sure Amazon stays stocked with your products, the rest is done for you.

Check out the official Fulfillment by Amazon page »Amazon FBA Example

Dan Meadors and his business partner have had great success with this…

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Dan MeadorsCo-founder of The Wholesale Formula $400,000+ monthly amazon wholesale revenue

They buy products in bulk, get those products shipped to Amazon’s FBA warehouses, then resell them on Amazon.com.

What kind of online business is Amazon FBA?

Here’s how an Amazon FBA business would fit into our online business framework:

Resale (Level 3)
You would source existing products and resell them via Amazon, perhaps with enhanced packaging or marketing. Physical Product (Level 5)
Here you would be creating the product yourself – or modifying an existing product – then selling via Amazon.

Click the links above to see real examples of each type of business, and the pros and cons of each.

What is the best Amazon FBA training?

We are still in the process of researching and reviewing the best Amazon FBA courses. Enter your email below and we’ll let you know when we have more info.

Want to know when this page is updated?

Join 12,908 subscribers on our mailing list and we'll keep you in the loop. You'll also receive my weekly newsletter packed with tips, strategies and opportunities to build your online business.

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Questions about Amazon FBA?

Let me know in the comments below.

Other ways to make money online

There are many other ways to make money online, to work from home or anywhere in the world.

Full list of ways to make money onlineMore profiles of online money makers

eBiz Weekly #118

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 12,676 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

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This week:

Tour guides making money online$19k for walking in the rainFiverr Productized Service OpportunitiesDeal of the Week: 50% off at FlexJobsLook better on Zoom callsThis newsletter makes $2 million a year₹1-3 lakhs/month Micro-SaaS ideasHe made millions with Bitcoin, then NFTsHandling Rejection as a FreelancerMarch Finance ReportTour guides making money online

Check out Heygo.com

As described by Zoë in our FBB group:

Found this cool site that allows tour guides around the world to offer livestreamed tours that anyone can join for free. If you like the tour, you can give them a tip. I went on a tour of a mosque in Istanbul, saw the old city of Sibiu, Romania, and saw a bit of Montenegro as well. Really nice site to do some “travel” from your couch and get inspiration, while helping support tour guides that have been out of work for so long!

As I’m writing this I’ve got a tour of Shanghai going in the background, and 164 other people are tuned in live.

I’ve yet to see reports from tour guides revealing how much money they earn from the site, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s comparable to how much they made doing the same tours pre-COVID.

$19k for walking in the rain

How about doing video tours without talking?

A bunch of people do exactly that on YouTube.

For example:

Rome virtual walking tour – 1.3 million views – $2500 earningsVirtual mountain run – 128k views – $500 earningsNYC rain walk –  10.1 million views – $19,000 earningsTokyo rain walk – 4.3 million views – $8000 earnings

(Earnings estimates from Influencer Marketing Hub)

Easy enough to make videos like those. The hard part is racking up enough views to earn decent money from ad revenue.

Check this guide from Backlinko to upgrade your YouTube marketing game

Fiverr Productized Service Opportunities

Here’s a nice write-up of how you can use Fiverr to create a productized service business

Plenty of examples you can take inspiration from, such as:

Million dollar tagline writing service6-figure copywriting gigMillion dollar resume writing serviceDeal of the Week: 50% off at FlexJobs

FlexJobs is our #1 place to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of researching and testing remote job boards

Use promo code SPRING through April 30th, get up to 50% off your subscription, and finally find a great remote job.

FlexJobs reviewAll deals this weekLook better on Zoom calls

You might feel a little envious of Seth Godin’s setup for Zoom calls, as I did.

You’ll need a few hundred dollars to emulate it, but as he says, “it’s time to get serious about how we show up in remote meetings.”

This newsletter makes $2 million a year

It’s the Ferrari Market Letter

(Check out that website, looks like it was built in 2005!)

Chris Bakke wrote about the business on Twitter…

One of my favorite small business ideas:

1.  Pick a hobby that you spend too much $$ on
2.  Create a newsletter for that hobby
3.  Market to other enthusiasts via reddit/twitter/FB

The Ferrari Market Letter has 5k subscribers and does $2m+ in revenue with a team of 2.

People who love cars, watches, purses, shoes, clothes, wine, whiskey, cigars, skiing, bicycling, hunting, etc. will pay big $ to learn from, connect with, and buy from other enthusiasts.

Worth noting that the Ferrari Market Letter started as a print publication and has been around for 40+ years. So it’s definitely not an overnight success.

Sah Kilic has a write-up on that business and opportunities to create similar.

₹1-3 lakhs/month Micro-SaaS ideas

Paresh Deshmukh lays out a smart process for finding them

(FYI: ₹1-3 lakhs/month = $1500-4000/month)

Complement with this Micro-SaaS guide from Preetam Nath.

His description of Micro-SaaS:

It’s a software-as-a-service business at the high level, but built more intentionally as a small business by an individual or small group of individuals. You could call micro-SaaS the future of lifestyle software businesses – location independent, recurring revenue, and hopefully low churn.

3 examples of successful Micro-SaaS businesses (source):

Everhour time tracking – $120k/monthMealime meal planning – $64k/monthComplice daily planning – $6k/month

Btw, I consider SaaS to be a Level 5 online business (Cloud Service). Not an easy one to start with.

He made millions with Bitcoin, then NFTs

The Hustle has the story on an Australian chap named Daniel Maegaard.

Daniel put about $4000 into Bitcoin back in 2013 – while still a college student – and became a millionaire by 2017

Then he started getting into NFTs, and apparently now owns $12 million worth.

See the NFT that he uses for his Twitter profile pic? He bought that for $18,000 and was recently offered $4.2 million for it.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting that NFT prices are down 70% from their February peak

Related: from now on whenever someone asks about NFTs I’ll just send them here

Handling Rejection as a Freelancer

I’ve long been bullish on freelancing as the best way to start earning a decent living online (unless you want to get a remote job).

And that’s because freelancing is a very simple type of online business.

Simple, but not always easy

Seth Bedgood writes about handling rejection as a freelancer, including an analogy I like a lot:

I think of rejection more like striking out in baseball. The best baseball players in the world hit for a .300 average, which means that a whopping 70% of the time they fail. These are the best in the world and they are failing more often than they are succeeding.

In Sam Ovens’ Consulting Accelerator course (reviewed here), he reckons a 30% success rate from your pitches is about as good as it gets, and I tend to agree.

Keep swinging that bat, accept that rejections are part of the game, and know that some can even be turned to your advantage.

March Finance Report

Each month I share how much money I earn and spend in my business

Here’s the latest report, with earnings of $18k and expenses at $3k.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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That’ll do it for this week.

Feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-118/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#117 – Turning a Small App into $20k/month#116 – 6-Figure SEO Playbook#115 – Goats earn $70,000 on ZoomFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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eBiz Weekly #117

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This week:

Learn to code with ExercismYouTube ShortsDeal of the Week: 60% Off Udacity CoursesTurning a Small App into $20k/monthPaul Graham’s Top 3 EssaysListen to the Future$20k/month outsourced cleaning serviceMeanwhile, in NFT land…50 million views in 5 daysMomentosRemember this is possibleLearn to code with Exercism

If you want to learn to code, check out Exercism.io

Exercism aims to provide opportunity for people of all backgrounds by helping them develop their programming skills through practice and mentorship.

It’s 100% free and I’ve seen nothing but positive reviews of it.

Like this one:

I myself found it extremely satisfying and worthwhile to both learn new stuff and help others do the same. And the Exercism platform gives me just the perfect tools to do both.

For more info, check the Exercism homepage, or watch this 25-minute introduction on YouTube.

YouTube Shorts

YouTube recently launched their version of TikTok, calling it…

a short-form video experience for anyone who wants to create short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones.

Darko from UAC recommends jumping on this fast:

Once a popular distribution channel (like YouTube) adds a new feature, they tend to give extra exposure to the early adopters for a period of time. This makes sense if you’re YouTube – the best way to get people to use something is to give positive feedback. For creators, that’s more views and clicks.

Reports of folks going viral with YouTube Shorts here, here and here

Deal of the Week: 60% Off Udacity Courses

Udacity is an online education platform, great for serious students looking to gain employment or start a business in the tech industry.

The courses on Udacity are generally very high quality. Think college-level curriculum

And many of the courses are taught in collaboration with big-name tech companies like Amazon and Google.

To celebrate the launch of their School of Cybersecurity, for a limited time you can get a 60% discount on any Udacity course with code CYBER60.

(Btw, cybersecurity looks to be a great career move right now. There will apparently be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally by the end of 2021.)

Udacity course catalogSee all deals this weekTurning a Small App into $20k/month

Great story via Reddit of how two brothers built FreeYourMusic

FreeYourMusic allows you transfer your playlists across music streaming services, e.g. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc. Most of our customers are simply people who want to switch to a different provider and take their playlists with them.

I wanted to share with you how a small script I wrote for myself turned into a profitable business (the company is approaching 6 years).

Read the full thing for lots of great lessons and takeaways.

It’s also a nice example of how “scratching your own itch” can turn into a profitable business. Are there any frustrations or inconveniences you keep running into? Could you figure out a solution and make it a business?

Related: 40+ ways to come up with a business idea

Paul Graham’s Top 3 Essays

The co-founder of that aforementioned app recommended that aspiring entrepreneurs “read everything from Paul Graham.”

Graham is well known as the founder of Y Combinator and Hacker News, and about as legendary a figure as you’ll find in the tech world

A while back he tweeted lists of his favorite and most popular essays. The three that get the most traffic:

Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s ScheduleDo Things that Don’t ScaleLife is Short

Also, if startups are your thing, it’s worth checking out Y Combinator’s free online Startup School.

Listen to the Future

Just hit play on Tim Ferriss’s long conversation with Balaji Srinivasan

I’m about halfway through and have seen lots of rave reviews for it on Twitter.

One such:

It will help you to navigate the future world that is coming post pandemic.

$20k/month outsourced cleaning service

Love this interview on Side Hustle Nation, about a couple who run a cleaning service

They started a residential cleaning business called Maids2Match.com. Today, that business is doing $20-25k in sales a month, with other people doing the cleaning. Anthony and Jhanilka are fully in business-owner mode, dedicating just a few hours a week to it.

They were inspired by a similar business that does $60k/month in revenue.

Definitely opportunities for more “drop servicing” businesses like that. At the end of the interview with Anthony and Jhanilka you can download a PDF with 101 other service business ideas, many accompanied by real examples.

Meanwhile, in NFT land…The New York Times sold this column as an NFT for $674,506Jack Butcher is going for the record, listing an NFT for sale for $80 millionNBA Top Shot now has a market cap of $1 billionPlenty of talk about scams and fraud and an NFT art bubble50 million views in 5 days

That would be this viral website: istheshipstillstuck.com

Tom Neill is the creator and his write-up of the whole story is a fun read.

He shares that the site was seeing NYT-level traffic for a few days, and he ended up rick-rolling ~250,000 people and getting followed by Sarah Jessica Parker on Twitter.

Most relevant to this newsletter though were his monetization experiments

The obvious way to monetize a site like that is with display ads. In issue #68 of this newsletter I reported that the viral website howmuchtoiletpaper.com generated ~$25K from display ads in about a month.

But Tom didn’t want to go that route. Instead he tried selling his site as an NFT, which didn’t go very well and only netted him about $60 profit

Especially for artists looking for a way to finally make money from their art on the internet (I am 100% not putting myself in this category), [the NFT approach] seems very pay-to-play with very low likelihood of success.

He had a little more success with Amazon affiliate links, earning $279 in commissions in 3 days.

However…

Considering that in those 3 days the website had 2.7 million page views, I think it’s fair to say you’re not going to make your fortune from affiliate marketing links to books.

Yup, affiliate marketing ain’t easy. Definitely read this primer before you get into it

Momentos

My latest personal ramblings are here if you fancy a quick read

Remember this is possible

Lastly for this week, Daniel Vassallo shares the story of how he lost $1 million, and how it was one of his best decisions ever.

Key point:

Remember that it’s possible for your income to drop 50% while your lifestyle improves 500%. Don’t forget what you’re really chasing when making tradeoffs.

Btw, Daniel is the guy who earned $100k in 4 months last year with a couple of digital products

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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That’ll do it for this week.

Feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-117/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#116 – 6-Figure SEO Playbook#115 – Goats earn $70,000 on Zoom#114 – $53/hour small-time YouTuberFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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eBiz Weekly #116

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 12,168 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

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This week:

6-Figure SEO PlaybookLow-Competition App Marketplaces$100K/month maid service softwareCities paying remote workers to move there$910 selling NFT FartsEntry Level Work Online JobsLearn Copywriting FastSite cost $2k, earns $1k/monthPay The Price6-Figure SEO Playbook

Check this in-depth article from Glen Allsopp about how he earned six-figures selling SEO audits

The cheapest detailed audit we ever sold was $4,000, and I believe the most expensive was $8,000. The average was around $5,500 per site. A significant percentage of in-depth audits we sold first started with a $40 video audit.

Glen goes on to lay out his whole playbook, and says it should translate well to other kinds of service-based businesses (email marketing, PPC, social media management, etc.)

From the comments of the article:

I followed your process, launched it today, got my first sale.

Btw, Glen also has a premium SEO course that’s reopening at the end of March. I’ve been inside and it’s

Low-Competition App Marketplaces

Paraphrasing an interesting nugget from a recent MFM podcast:

There are 1.6 billion iPhone users and 2 million iPhone apps. Meanwhile, there are 3 billion chrome users and only 200,000 Chrome extensions, so there’s a lot more opportunity there.

I checked the numbers and added a few more, ordered by ratio:

3200 Shopify apps, 1 million businesses using Shopify = 1:312 (one app for every 312 users)2 million apps in Apple App Store, 1.65 billion active Apple devices = 1:8253 million Google Play apps, 2.5 billion Android users = 1:83358,000 WordPress plugins, 75 million WordPress websites = 1:1293150,000 Chrome extensions, 3 billion Chrome users = 1:20,000

As you can see, the Chrome ratio dwarfs the rest. Meaning there probably is a ton of opportunity there, though I suspect Chrome users aren’t used to paying for extensions the same way iOS or Android users are used to paying for apps.

Honey is the prime example of a Chrome extension that makes big money. It works on pretty much all browsers and sold to PayPal for $4 billion in 2019

A more relatable example is TexTrader, which apparently made $4,012 in 7 days recently. (That last link is a good place to start if you want to learn more about building a Chrome extension, even if you’re not a developer.)

As they said on the MFM podcast, it’s worth thinking about what apps are successful on crowded marketplaces, and considering if they could be emulated somewhere less crowded.

$100K/month maid service software

That’s ZenMaid.

It basically helps cleaning service companies streamline their operations

Co-founder Amar Ghose recently dropped some lessons from 8 years of building the company, including the ABZ framework, why you shouldn’t trust Nathan Latka, and…

Don’t compare yourself to others. It took us over 3 years to get to 10k MRR while I had friends jumping out to 30k+ in the same time period. Some are still ahead of us, most are not.

Impatience with actions, patience with results.

Cities paying remote workers to move there

This website lists 37 right now.

All in the USA

Top offer is $16,000 to move to Southwest Michigan.

$910 selling NFT Farts

No joke.

The New York Post has an article about it and the guy behind the venture did a Reddit AMA on Wednesday.

And I can ‘t believe I’m writing this, but you can listen to the farts here if you feel so inclined

In other bizarre NFT news, “a single red pixel selling as an NFT for $900,000”

More about NFTs in #111 and #112 in the newsletter archive.

Before you go spending money on NFTs yourself, probably a good idea to read this and this.

Entry Level Work Online Jobs

Three articles for this kind of work on eBiz Facts:

Typing jobs (up to $95k/year)Chat Jobs (up to $21/hour)Data Entry jobs ($12-15/hour)Site cost $2k, earns $1k/month

Full story on Reddit, though the site isn’t revealed.

In short, the site owner found some “low hanging fruit” keywords via Ahrefs, quickly built a site with ~50 pages of content, and now almost 18 months later it’s earning around $950/month (mainly from display ads), and he reckons he could sell it for $25,000-$30,000.

Learn Copywriting Fast

Here are some of the best resources I’ve come across for learning copywriting:

Backlinko’s copywriting guideThe Complete Copywriting Course (Udemy)CopywritingCourse.comMatthew Morgan’s free copywriting course (YouTube)

The first two are more about the skill of copywriting, while the last two have lots about landing freelance clients

Pay The Price

With March Madness in full swing, let’s finish off with a quote from legendary coach John Wooden:

People usually know what they should do to get what they want. They just won’t do it. They won’t pay the price. Understand there is a price to be paid for achieving anything of significance. You must be willing to pay the price.

That’s via the book Wooden, which I highly recommend. Coach Wooden’s TED Talk – on the difference between winning and succeeding – is also well worth a watch

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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HP

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That’ll do it for this week.

Feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-116/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#115 – Goats earn $70,000 on Zoom#114 – $53/hour small-time YouTuber#113 – $50k/month helping Indians bragFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Gudauri, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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eBiz Weekly #115

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 11,919 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

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This week:

Goats earn $70,000 on ZoomMillion Dollar Paid CommunitiesDeal of the Week: Stencil for $49Solve problems every single daywtf@.kzTwitter side hustle = $2000/monthLearning How To Learn$2 million writing resumes on FiverrOrganize your life this wayKickstarter for StartupsMomentosGoats earn $70,000 on Zoom

I told you about Goat 2 Meeting almost a year ago:

An animal sanctuary in Silicon Valley called Sweet Farm is letting people pay to get llamas, goats, and other farm animals to tune into their video calls for under $100.

That service pulled in about $30,000 in its first month

You’d think the market for “goats on Zoom calls” would be pretty small, but BBC recently reported on a farm in the UK offering the same service during COVID and earning $70,000.

See here for 40+ more weird ways people make money online, including:

Selling old books on Kindle – $1,300 per monthImpersonating Jesus – at least $22,500 per yearTalking people to sleep – at least $25,000 per monthMillion Dollar Paid Communities

Last week on the My First Million podcast, Shaan and Sam discussed some big-money paid communities.

Such as:

Tiger21: for people with net worth of $10m+ … estimated $24m annual revenueEvanta: for C-level executives … estimated $1b annual revenueVistage: for business leaders … estimated $100m annual revenueSoleSavvy: for sneaker heads … estimated $160k MRR

Shaan considers paid communities to be the #1 way to earn $10k a month as a side hustle.

He has a free community for people who own ecommerce stores earning more than $100k per month. Only takes him about 3 hours each month to run it. 75 members, and one sponsor paying Shaan $5000 each month.

If you already have a big audience or a strong network, perhaps there’s an opportunity there to create your own profitable community?

Deal of the Week: Stencil for $49

Stencil is a quick and easy image editor that helps you create professional graphics for maximum social engagement.

It’s similar to Canva, but works out far cheaper with this lifetime deal. I checked out Stencil on review sites Capterra and G2, and found hundreds of reviews and very high overall ratings

The unlimited plan usually costs $144/year, but right now you can get the lifetime deal for only $49.

See all deals this weekSolve problems every single day

Matthew Morgan is a young online entrepreneur from Northern Ireland. In this video, he shares how he went from “broke and lazy” to earning $10k/month in one year.

Paraphrasing:

The real thing that changed with me: I realized that entrepreneurship requires you to solve problems every single day. You’re going to have to figure out how to be self-sufficient and solve things on your own without having to ask somebody all the time.

As someone who regularly gets emails from people asking questions they could easily google the answers to, I couldn’t agree more with this.

I have a special “doomed” label in my Gmail, applied liberally to messages from people who clearly haven’t put any significant time or effort into solving their own problems. Instead, they email a stranger and hope for a magical solution to arrive back in their inbox

Don’t be one of those people. Cultivate the skill of figuring things out. And remember: everything is figureoutable.

(Also, the more time and energy you invest in solving your own problems, the more other people will want to help you. We all prefer to help someone who helps themselves.)

wtf@.kz

That’s a working email address you can buy for $10 at mailoji.com.

Mailoji was created by Ben Stokes, a 25-year-old developer from the UK. His write-up of the project is a fun read with a great headline:

I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service

Ben wrote at the bottom of the article that he hadn’t yet earned a profit from Mailoji and was at ~$1440/year in revenue.

Then the article went viral – due largely to Hacker News – and he’s now at $9000/year.

Storytelling for the win.

Twitter side hustle = $2000/month

@MtRainierWatch started as a Twitter account that would let you know when the weather cleared and you could see Mount Rainier (near Seattle in the US)

Over the years it has grown into a merch business that does $2000/month.

Something that stood out to me in there:

I’ve also learned just because I don’t like something as a consumer, doesn’t mean I should avoid it as a marketing tool. This is specific to email marketing, probably my second best channel for sales besides Instagram, and SMS marketing.

Are there marketing tools or channels that you personally dislike but could help boost your business?

Learning How To Learn

With more than 2.7 million students enrolled, this course on Coursera is one of the most popular online courses of all-time.

And you can do it for free

I’ve been going through it myself for the past two weeks. Definitely worthwhile if you struggle with procrastination, studying, or learning new skills.

Just be forewarned that it contains quite a few geeky mom and dad jokes

$2 million writing resumes on Fiverr

That’s Richard Lambert’s story.

He started in 2014, charging $55 per gig.

As of January this year he’d racked up $2 million in lifetime earnings. Which works out to about $24,000 per month on average

You might think Richard got lucky by jumping on Fiverr when it was still relatively new, but even back then you had to pay your dues:

“After a year or so, it really started to pick up. In 2016, it really took off. So, it does take a little bit of time.”

I wonder how many other folks started on Fiverr around the same time as Richard but gave up after a few weeks

Organize your life this way

Words from acclaimed author Neal Stephenson (via Deep Work):

“If I organize my life in such a way that I get lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time-chunks, I can write novels. [If I instead get interrupted a lot] what replaces it? Instead of a novel that will be around for a long time… there is a bunch of e-mail messages that I have sent out to individual persons.”

Kickstarter for Startups

That’s how I think of Republic.co.

You can use it as a startup seeking to raise funds, or as an investor looking to invest in interesting startups.

Gumroad recently used the platform to raise $5 million from 8,623 investors in a single day

Momentos

My latest personal ramblings are here if you fancy a gander

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Also, feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-115/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#114 – $53/hour small-time YouTuber#113 – $50k/month helping Indians brag#112 – Selling tradelines for $1000/hourFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

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eBiz Weekly #114

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 11,691 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

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View the archive

This week:

Teach What You Know100K SEO Visits in 4 Months5 content-driven growth strategiesGoogle Career Certificates$53/hour small-time YouTuber$49k/month on Roblox41 ways to make money with video gamesNo time to build your business?The worst business adviceJust StartTeach What You Know

Nathan Barry (founder of ConvertKit) is a big advocate of teaching what you know to grow an audience and make money online

He gives the example of Chris Coyier who started a site called CSS-Tricks.com, sharing fairly simple tips on CSS and HTML. Nathan didn’t think it was anything special, and was blown away when Chris raised $87,000 for his site via Kickstarter.

(That was back in 2012. As of 2017, Chris said he was taking home $100,000 per year from the site.)

Glen Allsopp put together an excellent article detailing more examples of people making money online by teaching

Headlines:

$3 million a year teaching people how to use Infusionsoft$13,000 in 3 days teaching modeling software260,000 subscribers teaching photography on YouTube$1 million a year teaching Microsoft Excel$35,000 a year reaching JavaScript$2 million teaching Evernote$2000 in first month teaching school librarians$4.4 million teaching ACT prep400,000 visits per month teaching landlords$1 million in a year creating lesson plans for teachers$1000 a month helping architects pass an examUp to $297 per customer teaching Scrivener90,000 visits per month teaching landlords how to use AirBnB

After all those examples, Glen goes on to share a smart strategy for building your own online teaching business.

Related: 10 most popular niches from several top course platforms

100K SEO Visits in 4 Months

Tavis Lochhead shares how he got off to a fast start with organic traffic to his tech review site, RecoRank.com

He’s using a programmatic approach to SEO, effectively summarizing other reviews online and spitting out overall recommendations.

Related: detailed video from Authority Hacker showing you how to do keyword research

5 content-driven growth strategies

Lenny Rachitsky breaks down 5 unique content-driven growth strategies

In brief:

User-Generated SEO-Optimized (UGSO)Editorially-Generated SEO-Optimized (EGSO)Data-Generated SEO-Optimized (DGSO)User-Generated Virality-Optimized (UGVO)Editorially-Generated Virality-Optimized (EGVO)

The aforementioned RecoRank would be DGSO.

TikTok would be the ultimate example of UGVO.

My site (eBiz Facts) is EGSO, but we’re starting to experiment with UGSO.

Lenny dives deeper on EGSO here, with 7 high-level takeaways.

Google Career Certificates

Google recently launched these online training courses:

IT SupportData AnalyticsProject ManagementUX DesignAndroid Development

To take the first four you’ll need a $39/month subscription to Coursera. The last course is free to take but there is an exam fee of $149 if you want to get the official certificate.

More info here

$53/hour small-time YouTuber

That’s Thomas Smith, who has 3.5k subscribers on his YouTube channel about consumer electronics

Here’s a typical video of his, talking about a tower fan for 4 minutes. He does it all in one take and never shows his face.

Thomas writes that he now earns about $53 per hour spent on his YouTube channel, and expects to earn “a comfortable low-five-figure income on the platform in 2021.”

For a platform with such a massive reach, YouTube’s revenues are surprisingly evenly distributed among its millions of creators. That’s great news for small-time YouTubers like me. I can rank 2 millionth among around 30 million total YouTube creators in terms of overall subscribers and still make thousands of dollars per year on the platform.

$49k/month on Roblox

You might have heard some buzz about Roblox this week, as the company went public on Wednesday.

Think of Roblox as YouTube for gamers. On YouTube you have video creators and video viewers. On Roblox you have game developers and game players.

YouTube pays creators 55% of ad revenue generated from their videos. Roblox pays developers 70% of revenue generated from their games

CNBC reports that Roblox paid out $328.7 million to developers last year, including…

Now, at age 20, Gawronski has his own Roblox game that he works on full time with his girlfriend, Elle Deppe. The couple, who met on the app, earned more than $49,000 in the past month from their action game, Bad Business, by selling outfits and weapons players can use to make their characters look cooler and perform better.

“In private developer communities, there were people that were making stupid amounts of money and we thought we could do that,” said Deppe, who’s also 20, in a recent interview.

If you want to learn more about creating and monetizing games on Roblox, check out TheDevKing on YouTube. Maybe start with this video where he makes a zombie defense game for Roblox in only 10 minutes

(TheDevKing is also a good example of someone teaching what they know. He probably makes more money from his YouTube channel than his Roblox games.)

41 ways to make money with video games

Check this article we put together, packed with more ideas for cashing in on a video game habit

No time to build your business?

Side Hustle Nation shares 10 ways to free up those hours

My favorite part of that article:

The next time you’re tempted to say “I didn’t have enough time,” try to replace that with the more honest version: “I prioritized something else.”

I also have an article + video on how to free up 10 hours per week to build your online business.

And if your big time-suck is playing video games, this article should help you cut back.

The worst business advice

13 professionals from the Young Entrepreneur Council were asked about the worst business advice they’ve ever heard.

Their responses, in brief:

There’s a market for everythingFake it until you make itOpen your business when you’re readyFollow your passion and money will followDon’t reinvent the wheelAlways be closingPay yourself firstGrowth equals successDon’t treat team members as familyTake the money and runIt’s better not to take risksThere’s no such thing as good debtDon’t make friends in business

Funny thing is, you can probably find a successful entrepreneur attributing their success to each piece of “bad” advice above

Goes to show how complex entrepreneurship is. The deeper you get into it, the more you realize that the best advice usually begins with, “It depends…”

Just Start

Finally today, some motivating words via Twitter…

Confidence grows with action and shrinks with idleness.

You don’t need to feel confident to start.

You need to start to feel confident.

Let’s get to work

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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That’ll do it for this week.

Was there anything above that you found particularly useful or interesting?

I aim to pack these emails with the best tips, insights and opportunities for building your online business. Your feedback helps me do that.

Also, feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-114/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#113 – $50k/month helping Indians brag#112 – Selling tradelines for $1000/hour#111 – This digital flower sold for $20,000Full archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Gudauri, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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eBiz Weekly #113

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 11,497 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inbox




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View the archive

This week:

Resources For Learning SEO6 Myths About FreelancingSo Good They Can’t Ignore YouBefore you start a business on Amazon…$50k/month helping Indians bragFree Mini Code BootcampPassive income doesn’t existTargeting $100 million annual revenueMomentos + Finance ReportAffiliate Marketing: 7 Things To KnowResources For Learning SEO

First: a new YouTube series by Ahrefs

That series is of course heavily focused on using the paid Ahrefs tool, but even without that you’ll learn a lot from watching the videos.

Second: this learning roadmap at learningseo.io, which points you towards free resources for every stage of your journey

Third: this article from Nick Leroy, who shares how he successfully transitioned from a day job to full-time freelance and significantly increased his income

Fourth: Udemy has a sale running through March 8th. You’ll find a bunch of top-rated courses on there, including many related to SEO.

6 Myths About Freelancing

Freelance designer and writer Cameron Chapman debunks them here

Myth #1 — There’s no job securityMyth #2 — Freelancing is more stressful than a full-time jobMyth #3 — You don’t have a bossMyth #4 — You can work whenever (and however) you wantMyth #5 — Freelancing is not a “real” businessMyth #6 — You only have to work on projects you likeSo Good They Can’t Ignore You

That’s the title of an excellent book by Cal Newport

The words come from comedian Steve Martin, who gives the following advice to aspiring performers…

“Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear,” Martin said. “What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’… but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’ ”

A recent example of that in practice: after hearing a popular podcaster complaining about their podcast set up and marketing, Henry Belcaster quickly put together a 2-minute video showcasing how he could improve it.

As a result, the podcaster hired him to do just that

This approach is also effective for landing writing gigs.

The basic principle is that instead of TELLING people how you can help them – which is what most freelancers do when they apply for a job – you actually SHOW them up front. That way, there’s no doubt in their mind that you can deliver.

Before you start a business on Amazon…

Listen to Season 1 of this podcast

Especially the episode entitled, “Is Amazon Too Big? We Ask Its Sellers”

Sounds like a tough gig that’s only getting tougher.

$50k/month helping Indians brag

Lokal App describes itself as “a platform for news, jobs and classifieds for more than 500M native language speaking Indians”

Co-founder Jani posted on Twitter that the app is now earning $50k/month and growing 25% each month.

Their key monetization insight:

Indian communities are very different from any other community in the world. We love to brag! Causes of celebrations are many and those celebrations are worthy to be shared with all. Family members often wish their relative coming from the US on an advert in the local newspaper

Lokal has convinced many of their users to brag and celebrate via their app instead of the local newspaper.

Our users are paying about INR 2000 -5000 Rs to wish their friends/family members and show this to thousands in their town on the Lokal app.

That’s $27 to $70 a pop.

Think about the people who live in your area. What unique thing do they love to do? How can you help them do that faster / easier / cheaper / better?

Free Mini Code Bootcamp

Sign up at Lambda School.

Live classes and recorded sessions. Learn HTML, CSS, Python, and JavaScript with practical projects.

Passive income doesn’t exist

Pieter Levels is a well-known online entrepreneur, founder of successful sites such as Nomad List and Remote OK (reviewed here).

Someone made a TikTok saying Peter earns $800,000/year in passive income

Pieter responded:

my revenue is anything but passive / It’s a daily effort and challenge to keep getting sales, ranking on Google, getting traffic and keeping customers happy / Passive income doesn’t exist

I believe passive income does actually exist.

But the inconvenient truth is that the more you focus on it – especially when you’re just starting out working online – the less likely you are to achieve it

The people most likely to achieve and maintain it are people like Pieter who are happy to work long hours consistently, regardless of their earnings. Paradoxical, ain’t it?

Targeting $100 million annual revenue

Nathan Barry is another guy who could easily claim to have passive income.

His company ConvertKit earns $26 million a year and he admits to having more money than he needs

And yet he works hard every day to build the company to $100 million in annual revenue.

Why?

I set the goal because I know it’s audacious enough that I need to undergo a transformation in order to achieve it. The 23 year old who started ConvertKit 8 years ago isn’t capable of building a product, team, and company to reach millions of people. He isn’t capable of recruiting, inspiring, and leading a team to navigate the countless obstacles that will need to be overcome.

Today at 30 years old I’m still not there. But I set the goal because it calls me to overcome real challenges that I believe will shape me to be a better man. More specifically I believe that if I pursue the goal in alignment with my values, I’ll be a better father, teammate, leader, husband, and friend.

That right there is what I love most about entrepreneurship: not the money it can bring, but the growth and transformation it requires of us.

When it comes to building your business, consider which opportunities will turn you into a better, more capable person. Those are often the opportunities that will lead you to financial success as well

Momentos + Finance Report

Feel free to check out my latest personal ramblings and my February finance report ($19k income).

Affiliate Marketing: 7 Things To Know

The vast majority of my income nowadays is from affiliate marketing.

I put together a quick guide outlining some important things to know before you get into it, including why affiliate marketing isn’t for everyone

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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That’ll do it for this week.

Was there anything above that you found particularly useful or interesting?

I aim to pack these emails with the best tips, insights and opportunities for building your online business. Your feedback helps me do that.

Also, feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-113/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#112 – Selling tradelines for $1000/hour#111 – This digital flower sold for $20,000#110 – $300,000 a year via UpworkFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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Affiliate Marketing Starter Guide

Affiliate marketing is a popular way to make money online.

In this article you will learn:

What is affiliate marketing?Is it an easy way to make money?How much money can you make?Why most people should AVOID affiliate marketingJump to…What is affiliate marketing?How much money can I make?Is it passive income?Should I start this business?Best affiliate marketing coursesFree affiliate marketing trainingWhat kind of online business is it?Leave your questions hereAbout the Author

Hey, I’m Niall Doherty.

I quit my last 9-to-5 job back in 2010.

Since then, I’ve earned my living online doing a variety of things:

BloggingWeb designAdvertisingOnline coursesEbooks

At the end of 2018, I decided to focus on affiliate marketing.

Here’s a graph of my affiliate income since then…

See my finance reports for latest earnings.

As you can see, I’ve had some solid success as an affiliate marketer. So I know from experience what works and what doesn’t, what’s real and what’s not.

Before you get into affiliate marketing yourself, here are the main things you should know…

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products or services, and collect a commission for every successful referral.

To promote those products and services, you can use free traffic or paid traffic.

Here’s how it typically works for free traffic:

The above graphic uses the Amazon affiliate program as an example. Many other ecommerce sites also have affiliate programs you can sign up for.

Such as:

AliExpresseBayTargetWalmartAlmost every web hosting service (eg Bluehost)

Search engines like Google are the most common source of free traffic.

If you go the paid traffic route, affiliate marketing looks more like this:

If someone else is selling something online, chances are they have an affiliate program you can sign up for. Then it’s simply a matter of linking to their products and services from your website – or newsletter / ads / social media – and collecting a commission for every sale you refer.

Sounds easy, right?

Well, not quite.

The hard part is getting people to visit your site – or open your email, or watch your ad, etc. – and providing them with enough value that they trust your recommendation, click on your link, and make a purchase.

How much money can you make as an affiliate marketer?

The sad truth is that many people who try affiliate marketing make very little money from it. At the same time, it’s not uncommon for people to earn significant amounts of money via affiliate marketing.

For example:

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner consistently earns $50,000 per month in affiliate commissions from her finance and lifestyle blog.A blog about house plants (Succulents and Sunshine) earns about $5,500 per month in affiliate commissions.An affiliate website about personal finance (Money Saving Expert) sold for $134 million back in 2012.

For more details on those sites and many more, see my curated list of affiliate marketing website examples.

Does affiliate marketing = passive income?

No. While affiliate marketing can lead to passive income, and affiliate marketing businesses tend to be quite scalable, it usually takes a TON of hard work and patience before affiliate marketers start earning a decent amount of passive income.

The journey of this Project 24 student is typical:

Screenshot from my full Project 24 review

He worked his tail off and even hired some writers, yet only earned ~$4000 in his first year as an affiliate marketer.

The good news is that his income is steadily trending upwards

I wouldn’t be surprised if his site was pulling in $3000/month after another year, and far more beyond that.

As you can see from my curated list of affiliate marketing websites, it’s entirely possible for mature affiliate sites to earn $10,000’s or even $100,000’s per month. 

That’s when the passive income dream becomes real.

But it usually takes several years to get to that point.

Should I start an affiliate marketing business?

If you are brand new to making money online, I would NOT recommend affiliate marketing as your first business.

You are far more likely to earn a living online in the next 3-6 months via freelancing or a remote job.

Whereas with affiliate marketing, it’s rare to be earning a living from it within 12 months. Most people should expect to invest 2 years in building up an affiliate marketing business before it provides them with a full-time income.

You can succeed much faster if do affiliate marketing with paid ads, but this is more risky and requires you to spend a significant amount on ads up front.

If you are brand new to working online, here’s the most reliable path to affiliate marketing success:

Learn skills related to affiliate marketing
Like web development, SEO, project management, blogging, copywriting, etc. Look for free training on YouTube or cheap courses on Udemy.Develop your skill(s) via freelancing or a remote job
Start with a low rate if you have to. Work with other people on real projects. This will accelerate your learning and you’ll be earning while you learn.Increase your income from freelancing or remote work
As your skills improve, you can charge more for your services. Aim to earn a full-time income while working only 20 hours a week.Start your own affiliate marketing business
You should now have the time, money and skills to make it happen. Keep working your 20 hours a week and build up your affiliate marketing business on the side. Invest in good training. Go all-in once you start generating significant and consistent affiliate income.What is the best affiliate marketing training?

Below are my picks, based on the 500+ hours I’ve personally spent buying, researching and testing a bunch of AM courses.

Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Courses

















1.

Authority Hacker’s TASS   ← best overall

2.

Income School’s Project 24

3.

The Affiliate Lab

4.

Passive Income Geek   ← budget pick

5.

Five Figure Niche Site

6.

Affiliate Marketing Video Course

7.

Commission Hero

8.

Digital Worth Academy

9.

123 Affiliate Marketing

10.

Udemy courses

How can I learn affiliate marketing for free?

Check out my list of free affiliate marketing resources here.

What kind of online business is affiliate marketing?

Here’s how affiliate marketing businesses fit into our online business framework:

Referral (Level 3)
This would be a niche affiliate site, or a business running paid ads to affiliate offers. Little audience building here. The goal is to quickly convert cold traffic to affiliate commissions. Authority (Level 4)
Once you have a significant number of followers or subscribers, you become an authority business. Think of established brands or influencers, recommending third-party products/services and earning a commission for each sale.Questions about affiliate marketing?

Let me know in the comments below.

Other ways to make money online

There are many other ways to make money online, to work from home or anywhere in the world.

Full list of ways to make money onlineMore profiles of online money makers👇 Subscribe to eBiz Weekly 👇

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eBiz Weekly #112

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 11,277 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

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This week:

Selling tradelines for $1000/hourNFT Boom TimesSaying no to everything elseMillion dollar sales funnelComing soon: get paid to tweetIf you were Jeff Bezos…Crash Course in Growth Marketing10 Breakthrough Technologies 2021Time Billionaires19-year-old Gaza girl lands Google gigSelling tradelines for $1000/hour

This is one of the more interesting passive income hacks I’ve come across.

From Side Hustle Nation:

Tradeline selling is the act of adding a stranger as an authorized user on a credit card, allowing them to increase their credit score by “piggybacking” off your credit.

The stranger never gets access to your credit card and can’t buy anything with it. They simply pay you for adding them as an authorized user. The credit boost they get from that can help them qualify for loans, rebuild credit scores, or get lower interest rates.

Full details over at SHN, including an interview with a guy who earns $1000/month selling tradelines for less than an hour of work

40+ other creative ways to make money onlineNFT Boom Times

Last week I wrote a bit about Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs, or “niftys”) and how that space is booming right now

Only a week ago the record sale price for an NBA NFT was $100,000.

Now it’s $208,000.

NFTs are especially interesting for digital artists, some of whom are literally making millions in minutes doing drops on sites like Nifty Gateway. For example, a former pro-baseball-player-turned-artist did $1 million in sales in 1 minute a few days ago

That particular NFT is a 42-second animated video of a person in a space helmet walking down a hallway.

On Twitter, folks are calling NFTs the “the   to the metaverse” and predicting that “they will change the way digital&physical assets are transferred.”

Hard to know what’s real and what’s hype in this space right now, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. Looks like there are plenty of opportunities for investors, digital artists, and “pick and shovel” businesses.

Saying no to everything else

Struggling to find time to build your business?

You could do what Steven Pressfield did, after years of struggle, to finally write his first book…

He created a situation with no escape. He rented a cabin, brought his typewriter, and shut off all other options.

He said, “I didn’t talk to anybody during that year… I didn’t hang out. I just worked. I had a book in mind and I had decided I would finish it or kill myself. I could not run away again, or let people down again, or let myself down again. This was it, do or die.”

Derek Sivers calls this “saying yes to one thing, and no to absolutely everything else.”

Here’s an example of 3 guys doing that in Eastern Europe and building a $5k/month business selling cartoon avatars.

Million dollar sales funnel

Miles Beckler shares a framework + insights that scaled his business beyond 7-figures per year

Worth a look if you sell digital products.

Coming soon: get paid to tweet

Twitter has announced that they’ll soon be unveiling “Super Follows,” which will enable users to charge for access to exclusive content.

So before long you’ll have your regular Twitter followers who see your normal timeline, and then super followers who pay $5/month for access to things like:

A private newsletterExclusive tweetsDeals and discountsCommunity access

If you’re kind of a big deal on Twitter, having built-in monetization could be a game-changer

(I’m definitely not a big deal on Twitter, but it is my preferred social network these days. Find me @ebizfacts.)

If you were Jeff Bezos…

…here’s how fast you’d be making money

Crash Course in Growth Marketing

This free guide by Julian Shapiro looks incredible

This handbook explains how to acquire customers for your site or app then get them to purchase.

This guide is widely recommended within Silicon Valley because it teaches growth to a professional level. It doesn’t waste time with self-evident fluff.

Use it to boost your own business or deliver better results for freelance clients.

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2021

I wrote about technology inflections here (see #21):

Think of things like GPS tracking, cryptocurrency, augmented reality, drones, etc. What’s the next big technology inflection? What opportunities will it unlock?

Conveniently, MIT Technology Review tells us what the next big tech inflections are likely to be:

Messenger RNA vaccinesGPT-3TikTok recommendation algorithmsLithium-metal batteriesData trustsGreen hydrogenDigital contact tracingHyper-accurate positioningRemote everythingMulti-skilled AI

What business opportunities will they unlock?

Time Billionaires

Paraphrasing Graham Duncan on the Tim Ferris podcast:

People don’t really understand the difference between billionaires and millionaires. A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is slightly over 31 years.

20-year-olds probably have two billion seconds left. But they aren’t relating to themselves as time billionaires.

A good reminder that time is our most valuable asset. Every old rich person would love to be young and broke.

19-year-old Gaza girl lands Google gig

Fascinating story of a young woman in Palestine who learned programming mostly from online courses and recently landed internships at Google and Repl.it.

I chose Google because they will send me to Europe for the internship. Having the chance to spend the summer in Europe will be life-changing for me. I’ve never been on an airplane before.

You can take the same computer science class she did for free online

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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That’ll do it for this week.

Was there anything above that you found particularly useful or interesting?

I aim to pack these emails with the best tips, insights and opportunities for building your online business. Your feedback helps me do that.

Also, feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-112/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#111 – This digital flower sold for $20,000#110 – $300,000 a year via Upwork#109 – 34 Sites for Paid Research StudiesFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

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eBiz Weekly #111

eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 11,120 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.

Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inbox




HP

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View the archive

This week:

Website Flipping Starter GuideThis digital flower sold for $20,000How to succeed when you can’t focus7 things to know before starting a blogDo this every 90 minutes5 Most Profitable Businesses to Start in 2021The Algebra of WealthZero to $20k in 12 MonthsMomentosWebsite Flipping Starter Guide

We published this article yesterday, detailing 11 things you should know about website flipping.

The idea of website flipping, similar to real estate flipping, is to purchase an income-producing website, make some improvements, and then sell (ie. flip) to another buyer.

Mushfiq from The Website Flip wrote up the guide. He’s done 170+ website flips since 2008, including a few 6-figure exits.

Read the full guide and let me know what you think.

This digital flower sold for $20,000

See the image here

This kind of digital art is called an NFT.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are one-of-one collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain. Where cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin are fungible tokens, in the sense that each coin is interchangeable with any other, NFTs are unique assets that can be anything at all.

From the same link:

At an auction in December, the artist Beeple made $3.5 million on a collection of 20 NFTs.

A new work by Beeple – see it here – will soon be up for auction via a major auction house.

Shaan Puri has been getting his feet wet with NFTs: buying a digital artwork of Kobe Bryant for $824 then selling it for $8799 three weeks later, so a quick 10x ROI.

Meanwhile, the NBA seems to be going all-in on NFTs with their Top Shot collectibles. The NFT for this clip of a LeBron James dunk recently sold for $71,455. And a few other NBA NFTs have since sold for $100,000 each

Here’s a nice 2-minute explainer of NFTs on YouTube, and Tim Ferris discusses them with a guest from the 61-minute mark of this podcast.

How to succeed when you can’t focus

Stephen Duneier tells you how in this TED Talk.

He’s rarely been able to focus on one thing for more than 10 minutes at a time. But with some clever hacks and smart decision making, he’s been able to achieve some incredible things.

If nothing else, watch the 2-minute stretch about tennis superstar Novak Djokovic starting at the 1:30 mark. That blew my mind

7 things to know before starting a blog

This article by Spencer Haws is a must-read if you’re an aspiring blogger.

Key point:

If you are expecting to make a bunch of money in your first 3 or 6 months, you are in for a surprise.

You often don’t get the marshmallow for a year or two after consistent effort and hustle.

If you are someone that can’t delay the gratification of getting paid for a long period of time in order to make a more significant income down the road, you should probably just go get a job.

Yes, get a remote job, or start freelancing. Those are usually much faster ways to earn a living online.

Do this every 90 minutes

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time sitting in front of your laptop.

And so you might occasionally suffer from neck or back pain

This free challenge gives you several 2-minute movement routines that you can do every 90 minutes during your work day.

I’ve been following it for the past two weeks and liking it a lot.

5 Most Profitable Businesses to Start in 2021

The title’s a bit clickbaity but this 10-minute video from Noah Kagan is pretty good, backed by data from Trends.co

The five booming niches discussed in the video:

Organ SupplementsTattoosAccessory Dwelling UnitEdu-ploymentWork-from-home Health

As those niches grow, there should be opportunities for many new products and services.

Related:

My in-depth review of Trends.co47 ways to come up with a business ideaThe Algebra of Wealth

According to Scott Galloway: wealth = focus x stoicism x time x diversification.

The full article is well worth a read

An excerpt:

Successful people often unwittingly head fake young people with the humblebrags of “follow your passion” and “don’t think about money.” This is (mostly) bullshit. Achieving economic security requires hard work, talent, and a tremendous amount of focus on . . . money. Yes, some people’s genius will be a tsunami that overwhelms a lack of focus and discipline. Assume you are not that person.

(Btw, if you don’t have time to read such articles, try the free Audiblogs extension for Chrome. It lets you listen to any web article as a podcast, instantly. The quality is surprisingly good.)

Zero to $20k in 12 Months

Side Hustle Nation tells the story of Tami Smith, who started her fitness blog in late 2019 and quickly got her income (mostly affiliate) to as much as $20,000/month

Even more incredible:

With a couple of young kids at home, Tami said she only gets about 2-3 hours a day to work on her site.

Related: 20+ other affiliate marketing website examples

Momentos

My latest personal ramblings are here if you fancy a gander

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

You've been reading the web version of our free weekly newsletter, eBiz Weekly. Enter your email below to join 11,120 subscribers and get the next one delivered direct to your inbox.

HP

We'll first send a confirmation email to make sure it’s you 🔒
Check out our privacy policy to see how we protect and manage your data.

That’ll do it for this week.

Was there anything above that you found particularly useful or interesting?

I aim to pack these emails with the best tips, insights and opportunities for building your online business. Your feedback helps me do that.

Also, feel free to forward this email to a friend, or you can direct them to the online version here: https://ebizfacts.com/ebiz-weekly-111/

In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:

#110 – $300,000 a year via Upwork#109 – 34 Sites for Paid Research Studies#108 – $10k/month affiliate marketing in Dutch and GermanFull archive

Until next week, rock on with your legendary self

—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts

By the way...

How To Make Money Online

A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.

Recommended Resources

Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.

Free Courses

A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.

Find A Remote Job

See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.

Start Earning Online

A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.

Freedom Business Builder

FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month.

Facebook + Twitter

If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀

You've been reading the web version of our free weekly newsletter, eBiz Weekly. Enter your email below to join 11,120 subscribers and get the next one delivered direct to your inbox.

HP

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