Enlightened Individual

I am sorry I haven’t had time to update here for some weeks. But I have been really busy with a project. I also talked with a friend of mine and said I wanted to see how much it is possible to earn in one year using internet. I didn’t tell him my goal was to end with 10 000 $, and 1000 $/month as passive income. What I tried to do was to make him think if he could do the same, so we talked some and we agreed we would compete. This change a bit on my zero to hero challenge as he will be busy till 10th of July, and to be fair I agreed to wait till 10th of July as well. Yes, I don’t find it reasonable to insist starting 1st of July since he is busy with exams; he should focus his exam firstly.

So the new start date is 10th of July, and I will have a person competing with me. I also gave him some ideas; some of them which are easier for him living in USA while doing his master.

Anyway; I didn’t tell him how I would reach these goals, but we did agree on these terms. We are allowed to use internet and friends to gain expertise. We are also allowed to use what we have to create products. (e.g. word processor to write eBooks, camera to create YouTube videos).

We are not allowed to use money buying domains or hosting services as these are not starting from zero. I also suggested he could try finding agreement with wholesalers to deal with eBay, which might be easier if you live in USA. If he needed some start-up money I allowed him to do online freelancing or completing surveys. The only condition is of course he could document what he earned on these things by screenshots and so on, and how it covered any expenses he had.

Of course it would be theoretically possible to do the challenge by writing, or copy editing articles while writing your own self published book, and use money from freelancing to cover expenses as editor, proof reader and so on for your own book.

I don’t think it’s impossible to learn using Blender to create simple 3D animations. If they have a niche and a good plot you might easily become a YouTube partner. If you want to make it really simple you could probably use MS Paint and MS Moviemaker to create funny animations. But it requires a good knowledge of writing catching and funny scripts. But it is possible if you are determined.

The point is; you can create products as movies, music, art, books and gain revenue. You can also start writing sites and so on to gain revenue. There are really no limitations to how many ways you can earn money online if you are determined to succeed.

I will be updating this blog with my progress and what I am doing, I will also write a bit on starting freelancing, and self publishing and maybe other ideas for product creation during this year, so I hope you will stay tuned. By the way; I doubt I will frequently update my blog, but I will try to update each of my blogs here once a week. (And no, if I earn money on this site it will not be part of the zero to hero challenge – I already paid for the domain and hosting).

As I mentioned previous, I have started an experiment I call “Zero to Hero”. I also mentioned the thirty day challenge would be a part of it; mostly for educational purpose. But there is also one more reason I didn’t discuss previous. To be successful I think it’s important to have a team, and team who is supportive and share their expertise with each other. And so far I am happy; I have worked with finding a team, and within it we have people with experience in starting businesses, SEO, web development, sales, engineers, teachers who can proofread and so on.

Sure; I believe I can do many of these myself; but having a team with people who are experienced, and having experience will make it much easier to succeed. It will also make it much easier to create websites of quality.

This is an important issue as well: Yes; the main purpose is to earn money. I do not try to hide this fact; but I do not want myself, or others trying this, to spam the internet with trash. There should be some value to the web pages we create; and we should not start using ad sense or other means to earn money before we have enough visitors. I and you hate pages with little content, and search engines hate websites without quality at all.  So I am happy we have had a successful start to create team, as this is really important to succeed in my pursuit to win the “Zero to Hero” challenge.

I will also advice everyone to not join the 30 day challenge to earn one or ten dollars, instead use it as a educational purpose, to learn the business, and to create strong connections between the team members you are to work with.

Once upon a time it was great doing everything ourselves; and it is still true. We should not use others to do our work; we should not be lazy and depend on others. But neither is we experts in every area; we should make use of each other’s expertise as well. So do not misunderstand me; I believe to be successful I will need to do lots of individual work, requesting others expertise; but I should also be able to cooperate with others as a collaborative team to create web pages with teams.

My main point is this: I do not believe 30DC will educate us to be great internet marketers, but it could be used for some education, and learn new things you didn’t know or think about previous. But it alone will not make me great.  It is limited to what you can do with a web page in 30 days, as the true work start after 30, 60 and 90 days. The second reason, which is most important for joining, we have a chance to meet people having similar goals and ambitions, people we can learn from, and people that can support and motivating.

-Kentaki-

If you have read any of the blogs I created at enlightenedindividual.com you know the intention of the site is to develop myself to become a better person through improving my health situation, social skills, self development and monetary situation.

As you might know; I have started exercising running 5k, and next is starting to earn money from home, using internet.

While I have written a bit on FOREX, and saving money, I have decided to give myself a challenge; within a year I want to create a nice additional income from online within 12-18 months.

It will be an interesting experiment, and I hope I will succeed.

I will write articles on what I will be doing and my progress during the experiment on the money development sides, but will also post some information on free lancing, publishing etc for other opportunities to earn money from home. And if I find interesting I mind try some freelancing as well, but it will not be part of this challenge.

The experiment is similar to Chris Ferguson’s poker experiment, if you haven’t heard about it; you should Google for “Chris Ferguson Challenge”. The point of his experiment was to start with 0 dollars, playing free rolls (free tournaments to win a few dollars), till he had enough to keep grinding till he came to us$ 10 000. He succeeded within 15 months I think.

Anyway; I do not encourage gambling, and do not want to earn to living by gambling. Call me stupid or something, I don’t care. I know many people have gambling problems, and I do not want to earn money from something where I am encouraging other to play and lose/win money. What I did like about the Chris Ferguson Challenge was two things: He created 3 rules he played by all the time and he succeeded because he is professional and determined.

And just for the fun of it tried playing free rolls for month to see if I could read books and learn the game enough to win some money; and within that month I won us$ 13. (It took Chris Ferguson 7 months to earn us$ 6.50). I believe I earned quickly because I played a crazy kind of poker when I started, and later got more like a rock, before I again played some crazy. And of course I was really lucky. I never played any of that money as I couldn’t find it morally right to earn money this way, and of course it was really time consuming, and needed a good deal of luck.

Anyway; my challenge will be dealing with websites and online marketing, and most likely product creation. My goal will be to earn us$ 10 000 as Ferguson, and have sustainable websites generating money for me each month after the challenge is close (12-18 months – I haven’t decided exactly which of the is most realistic as I haven’t planned everything in detail yet)

I will try starting the challenge 1. July 2009 as some of my university papers are finished by that time and here is what I hope to be able to do:

Step 1) create 5-10 blogs, and market them.
I assume, before really investigated it; It will take at least three months to market and have them ready for advertising. Within the next month or two I hope to create enough to buy hosting for 3-5 more sites.

Step 2) Create 3-5 websites with affiliate programs or self created product.
These sites will of course be hosted by a cheap hosting company and have unique names. When creating those three pages I hope to be able to use knowledge I acquire from the 30 days challenge 2009 with Ed Dale. Yes, I will take part of the 30DC 2009 to educate myself, and share my experience on this site.

There will be a third step as well, but I will keep it as a secret till I have researched more upon the possibilities, but in theory the first two steps should be enough to reach my goal, but there might be a step 3 which will include more about creating a online business with outsourcing of some of the work. I will of course inform you about outsourcing for better creating of site and product if I earn enough to do outsourcing.

Anyway: The title of this project will be Kentaki’s From Hero to Zero challenge.

If you want you can do the same as me; I will write a bit more on plans I have for market analysis, niche research, marketing etc when we get closer to July.

I would love for other to work with me. Let me correct it; for others to do the same as me; and let us exchange ideas and knowledge to help each other.

I would also like a partner or someone to cooperate with in the Ed Dale’s 2009 challenge, so please email me at kentaki@enlightenedindividual.com, or leave a comment in the comment field if you want to join me.

At least I do not want to work from salary to salary for someone else; I want use some of my time to start creating something that is mine, and work to create something earning me money while I spend time on stuff I enjoy, and people I care about.

As a last note: this project is not meant to be quick way earning money: It is meant as a long term project creating sustainable revenue, helping me create more opportunities, and more projects. I hope to succeed and get out of the rat race where I work for other people, and other companies.

-Kentaki-