… and how to make it. Josh Fielding talks turkey in today’s internet age. Get some!
Why do you want to make money? Beyond any other question in the world of investment and income generation, this is the one inquiry that rules the roost – and determines whether or not you will make the effort to do what it takes to bank cash.
How is that? Well, think about it. If you set lifestyle goals – intentions – and work backwards to figure out how you’re going to achieve them, you’ll soon realise that money-making for the sake of life experience is far more attractive than generating a vault of gold and locking it away.
What if I told you – given our modern-day internet era – there is no good reason for you not to be making a healthy side-income? Imagine being at your desk and hearing your phone ping as you make another online sale from your hobby shop. Or execute another position trade … or even hit your first million followers on Instagram. It’s all possible – all you need to do is pinpoint those who have been successful, understand the market and then break it down into manageable steps that you can emulate.
Think about the new frontier. Even though the internet has now been around for a solid 25 years, there has never been a better time to use it to make money. Today there are people running entire businesses from their smartphones; we have young mavericks set for life through early crypto currency investments. As I sit here writing this article in a modern co-working space in Seminyak, a mid-20s Russian guy is sitting next to me with four iPads in a row balanced on cardboard boxes, frantically tapping away at simultaneous poker games. Everyone has their hustle.
First up: e-commerce. You may be thinking strictly of the likes of Amazon or eBay for your e-commerce needs, but the reach spreads much further. Etsy, the number one platform for the sale of hand made and artisanal goods, has exploded in the last five years, as well as platforms like Shopify, making online merchandising more accessible than ever before. We’re getting to a stage of web and online shopping where creating a shop will soon be as easy as point and click. So if you’re thinking that your premium-print origami sculptures should be shared with the world, create an Etsy profile or your own online shop. And think small – for starters at least.
In 2006, a 26-year-old Montreal man named Kyle MacDonald managed to flip, in 14 trades, a paperclip into a house. How? He didn’t have a job, so instead of posting a resumé, he looked at a red paper-clip on his desk and decided to trade it on an internet website.
He got a response almost immediately from a pair of young women in Vancouver who offered to trade him a pen that looked like a fish.
He then bartered the fish pen for a handmade doorknob from a potter in Seattle.
He traded the doorknob for a camp stove. He traded the stove to a U.S. marine sergeant in California for a 100-watt generator.
In Queens, N.Y., he exchanged the generator for the “instant party kit” – an empty keg and an illuminated Budweiser beer sign.
He then traded the keg and sign for a Bombardier snowmobile, courtesy of a Montreal radio host.
He bartered all the way up to an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper, a KISS snow globe and finally a paid role in a Corbin Bernsen movie called Donna on Demand.
Now I’m sure the first question on your mind is, ‘Why would director Corbin Bernsen trade a role in a film for a snow globe? “It was a KISS snow globe,” Paper Clip Guy told the world on his website. “Corbin happens to be arguably one of the biggest snow globe collectors on the planet.”
Having heard about his quest, the town of Kipling, Sask., located about two hours east of Regina, Canada, and with a population of 1,100, offered Mr Paper Clip a farmhouse in exchange for the role in the movie, which they intended to use in a competition. Bizarre? Not these days.
Back in the early years of eBay and e-commerce, something like this was virtually unheard of, but it’s now becoming more commonplace, with people beginning to put their cars and even homes up for online auction. As the world becomes more connected, the marketplace ‘friction’, the difficulty of buyers finding sellers and vice versa, decreases, meaning more flipping opportunities, but also more competition.
So let’s say you want to work from home. While ‘work from home’ Fridays may be the highlight of some city people’s work-week, there are individuals, including myself, who are beginning to formulate a career plan specifically geared towards begin able to work from anywhere on the planet.
The typical careers that offer these paths are programming, digital designing and content creation. But don’t be deterred if you don’t fit into these categories, there are more opportunities for remote work than I can count, as well as the possibility of making your current situation fit more towards your needs.
It is estimated that by 2035, one in three of us will be a remote worker, either from practical business necessity or from a lifestyle choice. This shift in working styles is sure to create massive ripples across the entire economy.
Pieter Levels, a 30-year old Dutch entrepreneur set himself a challenge in 2012 to create 12 startups in 12 months. While he didn’t complete his challenge, he managed to solidify himself as a thought leader in the ‘digital nomad’ space, as well as achieving a record £50,000 in monthly revenue from his remote businesses last month. Yoo-hoo!
The social-media era has also opened up the world to the concept of ‘online influencers’, those people who are paid big money by advertisers to place their products inside their videos and social-media posts. As of now, the top platforms for generating money this way are Instagram, Twitch, Facebook and Youtube. Nervous about generating millions of followers and the requisite traction you’d need to attract the big bucks?
Then think about Ryan ToysReview, a toy reviewing YouTube channel which managed to amass a cool $11 million dollars in revenue last year. It’s main star? Six-year-old Ryan, who reviews everything from candy dispensers to 100+ model cars from the Disney franchise. [His biggest video todate –“Huge Eggs Surprise Toys Challenge” – has been viewed over 1.26 billion times as of April 2018]. In only three years, Ryan ToysReview has become the eighth highest grossing Youtube channel globally. So put those kids to work! And remember: the social media community continues to hunger for ever more specific content. So start to plan now, link it to a lifestyle choice, a dream or a goal … and get busy.
