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Potluck dinners are such an amazing idea July 30, 2007

Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a comment

Craig and I hosted our first ever Groovy Tuesday potluck dinner last Tuesday. What a brilliant idea! Friends invite us to their homes and cook us dinner, then we respond by inviting them to our home and letting them cook us dinner. Delicious food, fun friends, and now we have enough leftovers for the next week. This could very quickly become a twice-monthly event.

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My new career begins July 29, 2007

Posted by Niels in : Passive income, Personal , 3 comments

I spent Thursday moving from the unemployed end of the spectrum to the self-employed end. Or at least slightly closer to it. Craig and I began by brainstorming our past talents, interests, hobbies, and careers. A sample:

Guitar, magic, running, triathlon, memory, electronics, computers, lockpicking, BJJ, swimming, biking, climbing, rowing, clarinet, investing, evolution, poker, home repair, drawing, college admissions, socializing, electrical engineering, Microsoft, windows security, balloons, busking, fashion, building a computer, speed reading, improv, public speaking, basketball, how to study abroad, how to quit your job, math, standardized tests, quick healthy eating, coldreading, how to learn a language, negotiating, internet banking

Next came a trip to Barnes and Noble to browse the magazine aisle. As per Timothy Ferriss’ instructions, we’re searching for a market to develop a product for, not the other way around. Our goal: discovering a niche market in an area of our expertise lucrative enough that it has one very specific magazine dedicated to it. Ad rates should be below $5000 and circulation above 15,000.

I found the 2008 Writer’s Market extremely useful. It has hundreds of pages of niche magazines, organized by subject with brief descriptions of each.

It took a couple hours to look through all the magazines. Whew! Work is tiring. And it wasn’t over yet. I spent a few more hours looking up rate and circulation information for all my prospects. But I’ve narrowed it down to eight markets that look interesting, all but one of which fall well within my area of expertise.

The next step is the fun part - coming up with a product!

Your thoughts?

A How-To Guide for Passive Income July 27, 2007

Posted by Niels in : Passive income, Personal , add a comment

I have a new bible. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss is the best book I’ve read in recent memory. It combines concepts I’ve heard from lots of different friends into one big picture.

I’d already begun piecing together a lot of what I want from my job. Time freedom, location flexibility, passive income. I knew it would have to be a product based business with dropshipped products and it would have to be internet based. I’ve started learning about writing copy, Google AdWords, and product launches. But Ferriss goes into excruciating detail about every step of the process.

From finding a market niche, to coming up with a product, to testing interest, setting up a website, driving traffic to it, and then automating the entire process so you can take yourself out of the loop entirely, Ferriss gives examples, details, references, and lists the websites you need to get the ball rolling. I’m excited - this is exactly what I’m looking for.

First piece of advice: don’t make the mistake of creating a product and then looking for a market. Find an market and then create a product. So tomorrow morning, I’m going to Barnes and Noble to browse the magazine isle to find my niche market. I’ll be looking for a magazine with a small target audience with a full-page ad rate around $5000 and at least 15,000 subscribers. By Ferriss’ timetable I’ll be testing product ideas by this time next week.

Full speed ahead!

Your thoughts?

Car progress July 25, 2007

Posted by Niels in : Personal , 2 comments

The Blue Wonder only failed three out of the four emissions tests - not bad for a $300 car. And the nice thing about Washington is that you can buy your way out of emissions - if I do $150 worth of work on the car, it doesn’t have to pass. The tricky part is that I only have 15 days to transfer the title or I start getting fined. And I need an emissions test for title transfer and registration. So I realized that I’d have to transfer the title first, then take care of registration. But I need a Washington drivers license for the title transfer. But that’s actually ok, since the Seattle bars have been giving me a hard time about the fact that I have a rather dubious moustache in my current license.

So yesterday was a two hour wait for a written test, after which I needed to schedule a driving test, which normally takes a few weeks. Luckily a spot opened up for this morning as I was sitting at the scheduling desk, which would have worked out fine except that Craig went biking and took his keys five minutes before I had to leave. So… one panicked last-minute phone call to a nearby friend and I had a loaner car, enabling me to pass a 15-minute driving test, wait three hours (no exaggeration), and then spend 3 minutes having my photo taken. I’m now a Washington resident (so long, income tax)!

Title and registration were taken care of this afternoon and my car is scheduled for emissions repair on Friday, which means that pass or fail, after Monday I will have a car that I can legally (though not skillfully) drive around Seattle.

Whew!

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I won a free WiFi/cellphone from CrunchGear! July 24, 2007

Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a comment



Continuing my streak of winning free electronics, Craig and I won the CrunchGear Destroy Your Landline contest. Apparently the competition was quite stiff - we were the only entry.

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