Ramit Sethi

I understand everyone's sentiment about Steve's blogs on earning passive income. If you look around his site he does have some interesting blog posts on things like Polyphasic Sleep.

HN readers for the most part are probably not in need of his motivational/inspirational "speeches" and articles. And most understand the desirability of passive income but understand its challenges, obstacles, and reality.

Someone similar who shares Mr. Pavlina's strong beliefs and desires for everyone to achieve their life's goals and live every day to its fullest is Ramit Sethi (http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/) with his own book and numerous other "programs" like Earn 1K. Ramit recognizes and addresses the reality of passive income and recommends not going after it at first.

Both Ramit and Steve are excellent reminders and motivators to keep working towards your goals similar to 21times.org's daily email newsletters for startups.

UPDATE: I like what someone else said in another comment here. Paraphrasing it: Don't think of it as passive income, think of it as delayed income.

UPDATE: Let's clarify what we all really mean by "passive". It's not really passive as in "you don't have to do anything". What we mean is that we are no longer trading straight time for income. Our income potential is no longer limited to the number of hours we are awake trading our time for money.

UPDATE: The delayed income relies upon a long tail return. Often the amount of energy consumed to setup the long…

Wow, this is so cool to read!

It reminds of exactly how I felt two years ago, before I quit my job chopping up bloody cows at a meatworks and "became" a programmer. If I can do it, so can you!

Like you, I thought my lack of connections or programming friends was the biggest hurdle. I came up with the following plan to get started:

1. Build five small apps that I can put on my resume, and are built for some specific end-user (or group).
2. Regularly contribute to an open source project I believe in
3. Attend programming meetups to be around "programming people" (I attended Python and Functional Programming meetups)

I did not spend time on stackoverflow or blogging about code because they weren't the biggest thing I could do to get business. They were part of my plan originally but someone pointed this out and I took them off.

To build my resume I would build demos for small job adverts on Elance. I wouldn't apply for the job, only slowly complete it and put it on my resume so I appeared valuable. Later, I earned $1,350 over 5 months, before a small startup in Australia found my resume, liked the look of it, and asked me to join their team (earning more money that I've earned in my whole life!).

I didn't make any friends at the meetups but I'm 100% SURE you could. The groups were sponsored by local software companies, who provided office space and pizza in return for advertising their job openings. Other attendees would let everyone know about openings at their own…

There's some fundamental dysfunction that needs to be addressed in online dating:

- Why the heck do folks use a service built by people who might not have been successful in love? Would I use an operating system programmed by doctors?

- How do dating sites overcome the personality shortcomings of having a hard enough time connecting in real life, let alone the computer. In the end the relationship is in real life.

- People are nickels trying to get dimes instead of improving themselves. (Analogy can be read here: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/why-wont-anyone-be-honest-with-you/).

- How do you set the bar of the mindset you want to attract? Should dating sites be encouraging and attracting people, "Love me to validate myself and my worth of receiving love", or "I'm happy, work at being the best I can and would be even happier with someone"?

- People who come on a site, find love, and leave might not be profitable customers. It's like the startup stuff out there, does much of it keep you in a startup phase instead of moving into more?

- In some cases, the socially challenged geeks that build it who may have underdeveloped personalities themselves trying to help others connect. geeks compensate for in person skills by being behind a keyboard. ie., what does Facebook have that isn't transactional and is transformative, say, like a successful dating match might be?

As a society, too many folks don't work on connecting to ourselves, and through that to…

Excellent points.

On a related note, I just read a good article on using small barriers to entry as filters for your time: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/i-use-small-barriers-to-avoid-kooks/

Most of the folks that ask me for help aren't 'kooks' perse, but they usually want someone to make their dreams come true with little or no effort on their part.

Asking these people to do a small task as a precondition of your help is a great way to filter out those not really serious about the goal.

Here's how it typically goes:

"Hey Matt! I hear you do iPad apps! I have a great idea for one! I'm super passionate about this and really want to get it going!"

Me: "Great! Before we go any further, it's best to sketch the app out on paper first. Do that and then let's take a serious look at it!"

I've had many many conversations like this. Even requiring a simple sketch filters out about 98% of these people.

Another common variation is from folks who want to learn programming. Instead of asking for a sketch, I'll send them a link to an excellent beginners tutorial to work through. I very rarely hear back from anyone after that. However, those very few that do come back are typically great to work with.

I haven't always used these filters. I used to really try and help everyone that asked for it. Unfortunately that nearly always ended up with me putting in time and effort to help someone who I would later discover wasn't really all that serious about the goal.

Small…

In the past, I tried many time to start businesses and many times I failed (although I always had a job and tried only in my free time).

Now, I have been running a business for the past 7 years, and it keeps growing.

Is it because I just kept trying? No. I might still be trying if I followed that approach. Instead, I took many courses on starting and growing businesses. That's what made the difference.

My problem, which is your problem, was that I just kept writing code for ideas I had. That's a recipe for failure.

You admit that you don't know if anybody would pay for the thing you are building. Stop. That's going to end in the same way as before.

You have to start from finding customers even before you decide what product you will build. You need to know who they are, how to reach them, what they need. You have to learn their pains and dreams. Only then you create a product that solves their real problems.

I recommend studying the stuff of:

- Jay Abraham: https://www.abraham.com
- Ramit Sethi: https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

But there are also many others. The important thing is that you learn how to start a business and stop throwing spaghetti at the wall.

If I were you, I would get a well-paying job to support your family. Then you can try something new with the safety of a salary. That's what I did in the past. Your time will decrease with a family, but I am helping friends with two small children to start a business, so it's possible.

> Is a strong, unified online presence a requirement for freelance success?

No. Not in the least. I think a strong sense of marketing yourself is important, and that often ties into developing a strong online presence, but not a unified online presence.

> they have a professional identity that they use across communities, a blog full of relevant professional content, and an attitude towards community participation online pretty much opposite of my own.

That's only one way to do it. There are tons of successful freelancers / contractors that you haven't heard of (not because they aren't successful), but because they're working on developing their skills and getting work, not developing an online presence.

When you want to take the jump towards full time freelance work, I recommend Ramit Sethi's writings on earning more money (http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/) or the earn1k program (http://www.earn1k.com).

IMO, you don't need to wait until you lose your job to start developing an online presence or to start freelancing.