Unemployed 5 years now.
 

Today I realized I've been "self employed" for 5 years now, which is a nice way to say unemployed. I have deliberately avoided getting a got a job, in order to pursue online marketing, websites, contract work etc. Anybody here that has an affilitate program, I am probably promoting you.

Sometimes I look at my friends, who are making a solid $140k a year at the job I left, and think that I've missed out on nearly $700,000 in my pocket, plus bonuses. But these have been the best years.

I've had dozens of experiments in websites that generate traffic, hours learning new code techniques, both theory and design, and watched my traffic jump one month, then dive to almost zero the next. Bills I can't pay, followed by $30,000 checks in the mail. New motorbikes one quarter, then bald tires the next.

I looked at MySpace when it first came out and said "I could make a better version, but it won't last" only to have facebook in my face and regretting "Man I could have done that".

Every year, there is a new idea on my website design list, and every year there are people that say it can't be done. Yet at the same time there is always a new facebook, youtube, twitter, right around the corner. The youtube and twitter guys never listened to those in the biz that say "All that can be done, has already been done - there is no more internet gold".

Well aparently there is still gold in them their hills. At 5 years I haven't hit gold, but today I realized "Wow, am still afloat - Cool".

I don't have a point to this. Maybe it's a work in progress.

I start too many ideas and finish way too little of them.
I guess it's easier to not finish a money making idea/project when you have a normal job covering everything. Makes it easy to be lazy.

Exactly! The lack of comfort zone of having a job, is what helps me to get those projects finished!

There is nothing more exciting then logging-in in the morning on my Google adsense account and see the numbers rocket. It's only been a few times, but it's awesome!

Nice post and very true

Glad you're still afloat. You obviously have the skills and knowledge to soar. Hope you find that gold for yourself and when you do put some away so you're not driving around on bald tires the next month. Thst's part of doing this gig successfully as well... Good luck!

You're that same guy looking for cheap programming jobs right? You should learn from yourself that you're a failure if you haven't made anything substantial in 5 years time. You should just go back to CL where you came from and work for $7.00/hr coding.

I jumped off the treadmill around Christmastime 2006, and haven't looked back. I was making close to 100k, but fucking miserable.

To be honest, I haven't made as much as my old 9 to 5 salary(YET), but I'm getting closer each year, and most importantly --- I get to maintain my sanity. Even working 24 hours in a day is like a vacation, because I can work in my underwear, take my dog to the river to play, go to Best Buy, do whatever the hell I want, as long as my deadlines are met.

I'm measuring success by those very things I just listed above, and as for the money, I think the sky's the limit for the earning potential in my field -- its just all about how crazy I'd like to drive myself.

Self employment is beautiful. I always said, "if I'm going to work for an asshole, it may as well be me."

Do you ever have anything nice to say to people instead of putting them down all the time. You always seem angry for some reason

Being self employed is fun. More fun even if you make less money, because you can't get fired, and there is no Boss to scream and insult you. You pick your own hours, and you make the rules on how you work, who you work with, etc.

I'm very happy, you'll see me fine in some threads and worse in others. I tell it like it is whether people like it or not.

Stability in this biz is the hardest thing to achieve for an affiliate. you never know what the next month might throw at you. Makes it hard for people who can't manage their money for shit. Sometimes passing on the new bike is the right thing to do...

cool story bro

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

fair enough ... I dont think Iv ever seen you post "happy" in a thread though

Facebook had already been done by classmates.com years earlier. But Facebook did it better, and made its service completely free.

God damn, if my living expenses were so cheap that I could charge $7/hr coding, I'd have a shit ton of jobs and making hella money...

You just described an asshole. You should think about how your words will be received. That is not an unreasonable expectation of society. But good luck with that.

:thumbsup

It sounds like you're handling your biz entirely the wrong way.

You say you've had "New motorbikes one quarter, then bald tires the next". That sounds like you're not managing to handle instability well, and splurge rather than save when things are going well.

Aiming to create the next Youtube, Twitter or Google is nice, but not realistic. Building a consistently profitable business, on the other hand, is very realistic.

Find a niche market, create a great product, and use your money in an "invest > save > spend" priority. Investing to grow your business, saving in case you need to weather through bad times (or, should you get lucky, sustain unexpected growth), and spending only when needed.

Almost no business is successful right from the start, and certainly not without the right connections. The idea is not to hit gold, but to create gold - a process that is rather lengthier.

Another good post ..whats going on with GFY ...people are making sense :winkwink:

Persistence is everything. Be confident in your project, don't doubt yourself.

That's fairly close to accurate for me, as well - except we've been at it 10 years. Riding the revenue rollercoaster...feast or famine.

"A work in progress" - that's perfect. :thumbsup

Congrats!

It's been about 5 years for me, too. The year was 2004 and I believe it was sometime in the summer, or October at the latest.

Most people just don't understand that you can earn money parking your ass on your love seat. Hell, I cannot even be bothered to walk to my home office. Or even my real bricks and mortar office...stopped going there on a regular basis last spring. My office there sits empty with nothing but furniture.

Whenever I start to stress, I try to remind myself that I live a life many dream of.

The only problem I have is that I do not get out enough. The sun can come up and set again and I don't even realize it.

Actually I think I handle my money well. I only used the new motorbike as an example. In reality it was more like "Sold old motorbike for $5000 before it lost too much value, bought new one for $7000 second hand".

I do agree I think I am missing something in the business end. This is actually what I like best. When programming for Sony, I was pretty much top of my game, but had nothing to learn. No new techniques, nothing new from year to year. There was nothing I couldn't do, or hadn't already done 1000 times.

But trying to market (your) programs and generate traffic is completely out of the box for me. If I was as good a business person as I was a programmer I would own Shell oil. I admit I suck at it, but at the same time that's what I like about it - trying that which I cannot do, and doing anyway even if it isn't perfect.

yea feels nice to be unemployed :)

Again I wasn't really meaning that literally. I am not trying to make twitter etc, I was just citing and example, that even though people say there is no internet gold, Twitter/YouTube proved us wrong.

I am shooting for the minor gold - multiple sources of income from multiple websites and programs.

Love the post. Thanks.

Nice post :thumbsup

I've been "unemployed" since Sept 2002. Best decision I've ever made.

I think I would cry myself to sleep every night if i had to go back to a 9-to-5 job. :(:winkwink::thumbsup:pimp

ive been doing this 13 years

stability and security are for bitches who make OTHER people money

Do what that company does that would have made you the money and do it better

"self employed" almost ALWAYS means "unemployable" - and while you revel in your "independence" , you pretty much proved to the world that your a terrible choice to work with in your "i'm glad i didn't get that job" thread.

"yay, i'm self employed", is typically how a failure rationalizes and celebrates failure

Being employed just means you're helping someone else fulfill THEIR dreams. I'll take being a happy unemployed loser over being a slave any day of the week.

... i don't think you really have a choice about being an "unemployed loser"... so yeah, you may as well convince yourself that you're happy... you've really got nothing to lose

damn..............like whoa..................:helpme

I stopped giving a fuck what "the world" thinks of me a long time ago and that makes me happy. Perhaps you should give it a try as well.

no... like anyone else echoing those sentiments, you really just stopped caring what the world thinks about your lack of goals, ambition and achievement because it makes your existence easier. you are "happy" because you let the nagging personal sense of dignity and pride melt away so you don't have to bear the immense burden of personal failure as a normal person would.

why does one have to care about what others think to have financial goals? to travel the world, to have nice homes, condos and cars? i don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about me and what i do and that has ZERO to do with my personal, business and financial goals.

I got thinking, nobody is unemployeed... You don't even work for yourself... You sell porn, you work for all the porn companies you're making sales with... Or Google making them money... In the end no matter how you think of it, whatever you do as "self employeed" is pretty much to make someone else money.

I'm a programmer... I write scripts for peoples sites too, but those sites are for the person to make money, so there for, what I'm doing is always gonna be to make someone else money.

You have 12,000 long winded posts on an internet forum and you're trying to call other people losers?

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

i was citing your preference for being an unemployed loser.

your words, not mine.

but then again, i shouldn't expect better comprehension from someone who thinks unemployment is a life goal

congrats on 5 years! I sorta went the other way. I started on the affiliate site in 2001 and in 2002 i quit my factory job of 12 years only making $27-35k a year. Since then I've only looked back and laughed at myself for not starting this sooner with 6 figured years. Ya i've my share of ups and downs over the years but never so bad that I couldn't get by.

And for sure this self employment makes you manage your money a hell of a lot better.

Clearly I should set my sights on a more important goal, like wasting a significant portion of my life trying to impress people on the interwebs. How is that working out for you?

go back to job :D

Wow I love the emotions this thread has generated. It really has brought out a few winners and a few more whiners. :-)

When you work for yourself, you have the best boss in the world (who lets you start and stop work whenever you want to) and the worst boss in the world (who doesn't keep you focused on your task and allows you to work on whatever you want to whenever you want to).

To be successful you need more than just great ideas. You need focus, discipline and an ability to properly manage your finances and resources on whatever scale they may be.

Most of the serious business owners here are either business minded or creative minded by nature but unless they have partners (or employees) who fulfill the "other" role, or have an ability to combine the two roles themselves, they will not be achieving all they could. (left brain/right brain stuff)

I once worked for a (then) small two partner accounting firm who in my mind had the perfect setup for business. One guy was a bean counting machine who never deviated from looking at numbers and needed everything exact to the penny. He serviced all the traditional accounting clients and brought the regular money in, and managed the business' own finances whilst his partner (also an accountant but a more flamboyant, "detail doesn't matter" guy) was able to look at the bigger picture, and dream up new services for clients, and new ways to build the business.

He was able to do that, and do that well, because he knew his partner had the business making core income, and that freed up his time to go after the bigger deals, which he then had to "sell" to the guy controling the funds.

Sometimes when you don't have a boss, it is good to think like you do.....

:2 cents:

Your post is actually very inspiring.

Freedom = Priceless

Second that!
Great story. Good luck!

This is very inspiring too!

Wow, and I just took you off my ignore list a few days ago because I couldn't remember why you pissed me off a couple of years ago.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I've done that a few times (with others) - hate when that happens.

Amazing how quickly they show up with a fresh reminder and back on ignore they go. :1orglaugh

I do hope that was a poor attempt at a joke.

Many self-employed people quit their jobs to fulfill their own dreams and not those of someone else.

Luckily, most people don't have the balls to rely on themselves and nobody else. If they did, being self-employed wouldn't be as lucrative for many.

The chorus to "Hey Jealousy" by the Gin Blossoms popped into my head when reading this post.

Remember, you have no one to blame but yourself for your own shortcomings.

I'm sorry, what is it exactly that you do again?

being self employed is the only way to go