Hey there!
I'm Daniel, and I'm just a regular dude in search of making extra money out of my skills!
That's easy to say, but I have been trying to do it for years! And my first step in this post is to identify what's wrong with me and what should I do differently.
The beginning
Whenever I started trying to do something to make extra money, something happened. There was always something blocking me there. With a lot of self-consciousness and honestly, I narrowed my experiences into 2 categories:
Didn't have or made time to work on that project. Either because of work, family or plain laziness.
When I finally started something, I got either demotivated by lack of results or found something new or more interesting to learn or do.
There was also the problem of what the heck should I do?? and to be honest, I still don't have the answer. I just know that I need to start NOW!
The plan
After a ton of reading blogs and researching ideas to increase passive income; I still didn't know exactly what to do, because there's no right answer to that question.
Then, I decided to change my focus, to my skills, and where I like to spend my free time :
React front-end developer: I can build intermediate applications or web and mobile and quick landing pages.
UI Design / Graphic Design: I'm not that great of a designer, I've always thought there was a lot of room to improve.
Children illustrator: Bad, like in it's quite bad. Bordered lines, never enough detail, bad technique, etc. I'm always unhappy with the results.
With those in mind, I review the incredibly long list of possibilities to increase my passive income. And barely matched the skill to this ideas:
Create a course - DEV
Write an e-book - DEV
Buy crowdfunded real state / REITs - JUST NEED MONEY
Create an app - DEV / UI
High yield accounts - JUST NEED MONEY
Create a blog or Youtube channel - DEV / UI
Sell designs online - UI / ILLU
Now, I need to focus on only one. Easy right? don't think so! Each one of these is covered in a bazillion of technologies, platforms or utilities that need to be learned or at least understood. An on top of it, I need to keep myself engaged, to avoid loosing the point of everything.
After some iteration, I decided to try two at the same time... and the winners are:
Create an app and sell designs online
The first one, because it's a challenge on how good or bad am I at coding a full-stack application concept. It also keeps me engaged and learning new stuff. I choose the second one, because there are tons of platforms to sell, and it's fastest content I can create.
The next step
I remember watching Josh Kaufman's Ted Talk, about the 20h that are needed to learn something. And I'm planning to try that approach. 20h (not straight. It's impossible with a family) focused in a single skill - single idea - single platform/project.
Single skill: Front-end development
Single idea: Mobile application in React-Native and backend in Strapi
Single platform: Sell the app in PieceX