During the course of the past few months, I’ve been reading, researching and experimenting with various ways to reduce my dependence on a regular dayjob. It was slow going at first, but as I took baby steps towards my goal, things started to accelerate. I started trying things just for the sake of try them. My previous post summarized my activities.
But I have been, to say the least, unfocused. The process of doing all this has, however, exercised my mind to be more receptive to and cognizant of new business ideas; ones that I would have not recognized if not for my trials and errors these past few months.
I expect to remain partially unfocused until I find the right fit for me. I will continue to devote time to TempestBlue Software, the best idea I came up with thus far, but my research will continue until I find something that screams out, “This is it!” A comment by John Kwarsick on my previous post sums things up very well:
… remember it is all about sowing and reaping, most people are concerned about the reaping, that is, what am going to get/or make. In order to get some fruit, you have to plant some seeds and that is what you are doing right here, right now!
When I started this blog in March 2005, I knew I wanted to make a living outside of Corporate America for various reasons, including the ones I blogged about here. But I had no idea what to do. Since then, through personal introspection, daily research on the web and just plain serendipity, I’ve embarked on several ventures of my own.
First is my microISV, TempestBlue Software. I wrote an editor tailored towards SEO and released it several weeks ago. Sales have been modest (read, more than 2, less than 7), but I’m far from discouraged and actually did a little jig around the room when the first order came in 
. I’ve just begun to market this and I know the marketers will say this is backwards, but I’m learning!
Second is Elegant Wedding Shoppe, an online wedding supply retail site. This started when my fiance made a flower girl basket, ring bearer pillow and bridal garter set for a close friend. Through word of mouth, she got requests for another 2 sets, and I saw an opportunity and pounced on it. I opened accounts with drop-shipping wedding suppliers and added their products into the mix. Through eBay and the online storefront, only another 2 orders came in so far, with pre-sales inquiries numbering in the teens. I’ve since learned that the wedding supplies market is pretty saturated and I may have jumped the gun on this one. But I did learn how to use Zencart and Paypal very well, so it isn’t a total loss.
Third, I succumbed to what I consider a pretty cheesy money-making tactic; I’m almost embarrassed to mention it. Following a process I found in an internet marketing forum (sorry, couldn’t find the link again), I created EnchantingWeddingFavors.com. It is nothing more than a Google Adsense flycatching site. I bombarded the site with pseudo-content using keywords “wedding favors”, signed up to exchange reciprocal links with other wedding websites and waited for unsuspecting visitors to come and click on the prominently placed Google Adsense links. Believe it or not, the Adsense revenue from EnchantingWeddingFavors.com surpasses that of FreeFrom9to5.com. This was really just an experiment though. I’ve covered my only expense here (the domain name) and then some, but I don’t intend to go into this line of business.
Finally, I added Google ads to FreeFrom9to5.com and signed up to be an affiliate for several related products. Although this affiliate income has been the easiest to earn, in terms of time spent vs. return, income from Kwedit sales has been the most gratifying.
Net profit over the last 5 months? About $70. Not an especially auspicious start, but a start nonetheless. And I’m learning, having fun, hopeful and slowly preparing for a future free from 9 to 5.
A few weeks ago, I released the software product I’ve been writing the past few months. Kwedit is an editor tailored for writing website content. Features include a realtime word count and realtime keyword density/count. Go check it out and let me know what you think! Sales have been very modest thus far, but I’m hoping it’ll pick up as the marketing picks up.
I mentioned before that I got the idea for this software from a fellow blogger. That would be Star of astepcloser.com. Star’s beta testing abilities really helped to make Kwedit a better product and I owe her a big debt of gratitude.
