Top Ways to Make Money Online in 2018 – Business Models Breakdown
Top Ways to Make Money Online.
People ask me all the time how – ‘How do I become a digital nomad?’ Well, it starts with making an income online. This page will be my breakdown of the top ways that, in my experience, digital nomads are making money online. E.g. these types of businesses / careers / hustles can be done from a laptop from anywhere in the world. They don’t require you to be at any specific place.
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DAY TRADING (guide coming soon)
Ways to make $$ from anywhere
Work from Thailand, or work from home – these are some of the most popular ways that digital nomads are making money online. I’ve personally met people who do all these things.
Just 4 years ago, I was literally sleeping on the couch for a year in a small apartment that I shared with Parker, just watching all these YouTube videos, DREAMING of being a digital nomad. At the very lease, just to be able to get up when I want, go to a Starbucks, and get my work done on my own time. Now, I’m literally writing this from a Starbucks in Thailand. My YouTube channel started just as a way to save my ‘vacation videos’, but as it’s grown into a community, my goal now is to help as many people as possible ‘break free’ – to get to where they want to be.
Because if there’s anything that my journey shows, it’s that a regular guy can figure something out and make money online – transition into a ‘remote career’. You don’t have to be a computer genius! And with an ‘online career’, not just is it a great career option if you love to travel and have freedom of schedule, but there’s also big opporunity to make MILLIONS on the internet. In the big picture, the internet is still BRAND NEW!
So whether it’s with Freelancing, Amazon FBA (what I do), Drop shipping, Affiliate marketing, Kindle publishing, Personal coaching, or fucking teaching english online – I wanna provide my tips, thoughts, experiences & advice to help you break free from your J.O.B. (just over broke)
Because we all have the same goal – to start living life on our own terms, and start making some passive income, so we can have more time to spend on our passions. And once we have lots of time to work on our passion projects, we can eventually can figure out a way to make money doing what we love – then we never have to ‘work’ again.
My vision is to create a questionnaire that will pick your brain and spit out my best suggestions for what kind of online business might be viable for you. That’s coming soon, so in the meantime feel free to join the email list, and/or post any questions in the LivinThatLife Community Facebook Group.
Category 1 – Own an Online Businesses
This is what everyone should strive for. Owning your very own internet-based business. A system that makes you money 24/7, whether you are at the laptop or not. But it’s not easy, and it takes lots of time and work. Like any business, it’s a full-time grind to start & build, but it can become relatively passive over time if you set it up smart.
Popular Online Business Models:
AMAZON FBA
- Create your own physical product and get sales from organic searches it on Amazon.com. This is what we do. Do market research, then create & source it in bulk.
Digital marketing AGENCY
- Perform digital work for clients, by building a team of freelancers to handle the work, and you become the boss.
DROP SHIPPING
- Build an online niche store, and drive traffic to it using various methods. When a customer orders from you at retail price, you order it directly to the customer from the wholesale supplier one by one.
KINDLE PUBLISHING
- Publish a collection of niche books and guides to Amazon Kindle by outsourcing the writing & creation process.
AFFILIATE MARKETING
- I call this essentially Online Advertising, aka Driving Targeted Traffic. You become an expert at some traffic source, whether its FB Ads, Google Ads, Google SEO, YouTube etc. and show people products and services that they’d be interested in. When they click your link & buy, you get a commission.
build a personal brand *
- Become a voice – Build an audience, youtube channel & blog, and provide awesome content. Once you have significant attention, recommend products & services.
- This should be a Long-Term thing you build on the side. Aka a ‘Passion Business that you slowly monetize.
Category 2 – Freelance
This can be a great starting point – is essentially take what you’re already doing or already good at, and do it online. The big picture goal as an entrepreneur is to create passive income streams – but working remotely by ‘trading your time for money’ can allow you to leave your day job quicker, and start living abroad or traveling. While on the side, you can work on building a passive income business.
If you start Freelancing, you should have the mindset of turning it into an Agency, sooner than later.
FREELANCING
- There are skills you can offer online – content writing, copywriting, graphic design, web dev, video editing, social media marketing, translation & many more.
TEACHING ENGLISH ONLINE
- Make up to $20 an hour speaking english with Chinese kids online. I know a people who do this part-time and full-time, as a baseline income to base in Southeast Asia.
Category 3 – Be a Remote Employee
TAKE YOUR JOB REMOTE
- Negotiate a ‘remote work agreement’ with your current employer. And take life on the road, while you build your side hustle.
Let’s break em down.
This is the brief idea, with links to a full breakdown on how-to.
Amazon FBA
Create, source & sell physical products on Amazon.com This happens to be my main income.
- Difficulty score: medium – first business friendly
- Startup cost: medium – medium $500-$2,000
- Scaling cost: high – $5,000-15,000
- Passive Score: high – relatively passive to start, can be very passive after first year.
- Realistic time to make money: 6-9 months
Digital MARKETING AGENCY
Instead of freelancing and trading your time for money, outsource the process by hiring other freelancers to do the tasks, while you step back and become the agency owner.
- Startup cost: low
- Ongoing cost: low
- Time requirement: high – full time at start
- Passive score: medium
- Realistic time to make money: 4 months
- Scalable: yes
What is creating a Digital Marketing Agency?
This is building a small company to perform digital tasks for clients and companies around the world. Unlike solo-freelancing, you hire other freelancers to do all the work, and you keep a piece of the project fee. I know several digital nomad entrepreneurs who do this. Build a team of freelancers to get leads via Upwork, apply for & secure the jobs, communicate with the client, and finally, deliver the work. You become the business owner.
This is eventually more passive than actually doing the work yourself (obviously), and it’s scalable. But at first, of course it’s a full-time project to build the team, hire people, manage the team, iron out the kinks, and then scale from there to your heart’s desire by duplicating the process. IMO this is a very solid option to make good $$ online. I know a handful of guys who profit over $5,000 a month from running this type of business.
START Freelancing
Get paid to do digital projects for clients around the world, who find you through freelancing sites like Upwork and Freelancer.
- Startup cost: minimal
- Ongoing cost: low
- Time requirement: full time or part time
- Realistic time to make money: some freelancers have scored their first gig in a matter of weeks! This is definitely one of the fastest ways to start making immediate cash – although it will start small and grow over the months as you build your profile.
- Scaleable: No
drop shipping
There are different methods of drop shipping, but the core of it is, getting your own traffic to sell other people’s physical products.
- Startup cost: $200-500
- Ongoing cost: $100-$300
- Time requirement: full time or part time
- Realistic time to 100% ROI if full time: 6-9 months
- Realistic time from product research to first sale: 4-6 months
- Realistic time to cashflow positive: 6-12 months
Kindle publishing
Publish a bunch of niche books to Amazon Kindle by outsourcing the writing process.
- Startup cost: $300+
- Ongoing cost: low
- Time requirement: full time or part time
- Realistic time to make money: 6-12 months.
- Passive income? Relatively very passive – 5/5
What is Kindle Pub?
Slowly (or quickly) build your portfolio of e-books sold on online platforms like Amazon’s Kindle, CreateSpace & Audible. Millions of people go these places to buy books. They will find you by small niche keywords, and buy based off your intriguing book cover, title, book preview, and of course, reviews.
You outsource the writing process for at little as a couple hundred bucks per book, and outsource the ebook formatting & cover design as well. If your books do well, they will continue getting sales for hopefully multiple years – with little to zero maintenance required. But of course it takes deep keyword research & sales demand research to find these little profitable niches!
Personal brand(Long-term side project)
- Startup cost: minimal
- Ongoing cost: minimal
- Time requirement: part time
- Realistic time to make money: 1-2 years
Monetize a Personal Brand:
This should be a Long-Term thing you build on the side. A ‘Passion Business’. Personal brand, blog or channel: In my opinion, it takes a long time to build up a personal brand, blog, or YouTube channel to the point of making real money, e.g. over $1000/mo. Like 2-3 years or more, from my experience, and I think this is typical. But I think its something you should be constantly growing on the side.
Some may just call this ‘Affiliate Marketing’ – but I’m calling this model a ‘Passion Business’ that can be monetized by affiliate marketing – by building a Personal brand, blog or channel. Because ideally, you are becoming a voice in a niche that you are interested in. What do you naturally like talking about? Simply put, start a blog about it and grow it.
Essentially, it’s becoming a voice in your niche. Thus getting targeted eyeballs, to which products & services can be presented.
In my opinion, it takes a long time to build up a personal brand, blog, or YouTube channel to the point of making real money, e.g. over $1000/mo. Like 2-3 years or more, from my experience, and I think this is typical. But I think its something you should be constantly growing on the side.
A personal brand, blog or channel can be monetized by creating your own digital products/services, and offering other products/services via affiliate links – aka affiliate marketing. Down the road, ideally it will become a passive income stream around something you’re interested in. For me, its my YouTube channel and this blog. It started out just for fun, and slowly, after 2-3 years, it has turned into a side-income. And in the future, it will grow into one of my main sources of passive income.
Another name people may call this is “Content Marketing” – aka being a VOICE or INFLUENCER out there in a small niche, by creating good content. And you present your audience certain products & services thru affiliate links. Simple as that!This is a great thing to be constantly be building on the side – your personal brand. Ideally it’s in a niche you’re interested in, so it turns into a long-term passion project that you make money online from.BUT – it takes time to build a brand and get steady traffic from content, like through blogging, YouTube or podcasting. So it’s recommended to first have a source or more immediate income, and be building a brand on the side.
Affilate marketing (Long-term side project)
- Beginner Friendly? not so much
- Startup cost: minimal
- Ongoing cost: minimal
- Time requirement: part time
- Realistic time to make money: 6+ months
Break Down
I call this essentially Online Advertising, aka Driving Targeted Traffic. You become an expert at some traffic source, whether its FB Ads, Google Ads, Google SEO, YouTube etc. and show people products and services that they’d be interested in. When they click your link & buy, you get a commission.
There are MANY methods to Affiliate Marketing, since it’s just driving traffic to offers!
Amazon Affiliate Sites: This is where you build sites reviewing a niche of physical products. Like bestlaptopreview.com. When people are looking for the best laptops on Google, if your site has great original content, which Google likes, it may come up on the search results. Shoppers will then read reviews on many couches, and you will stick your Amazon Associates link to buy it on Amazon from there, If they buy, Amazon pays around 3-6% commission.
People make money with this when they built out multiple affiliate sites, outsourcing the whole process. I’ve met in real-life a handful of guys who do this as their full-time income, but not many.High-Commission Offers: Most of the guys I know who make bank in AM basically just drive targeted traffic to offers with the highest commissions. Makes sense right? You’re basically an internet salesman for stuff you can buy online. Many of these offers are high-priced digital products or subscription products that pay out recurring commissions every month. ClickFunnels is a popular one that pays out something like 30% recurring commissions on their $97/mo service. ClickBank.com is a site that lists tons of offers to choose from that you can promote.
Being a Blogger / Influencer: If you have Traffic, you can always link to offers that the audience might be interested in. We see this all the time, including when I link to different resources on my blog, most of them are affiliate links that I get a % for when people buy.
Teaching english online
It’s kind of like freelancing – still trading your time for money. But I’ve known a few people who actually do this a couple or a few hours a day and are able to live in Thailand or Vietnam or Bali just off that!.
- Startup cost: none
- Ongoing cost: none
- Time requirement: full time or part time
- Realistic time to make money: some I’d expect at least a month to set have scored their first gig in a matter of weeks! This is definitely one of the fastest ways to start making immediate cash – although it will start small and grow over the months as you build your profile.
- Scaleable: No
- Good place to start: Yes
WORK for your employer REMOTELY
- Startup cost: none
- Ongoing cost: none
- Time requirement: depends on your boss
- Realistic time to make money: now
More details
I’ve met many digital nomads who work for a small or medium or large company, just remotely. And they choose to live in other countries and nomad around! Hence making them digital nomads. There’s a chapter in The 4 Hour Workweek on negotiating remote-work agreements with your employer. I recommend you check it out.
WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO GET STARTED?
I’m looking for someone who’s done this and interested in writing a how-to guide. In the meantime, listen to the chapter on this in The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.
If you haven’t yet…
Take my Course that breaks down all of these models – and everything you should know about what it takes to build successful digital career
Copyright LivinThatLife 2018.