THREAD // How learning SEO allowed me to quit my day job and achieve financial independence.
Caveat: This is not a "get rich quick" story. This took ~3 years to get off the ground.
Upon graduating college, I worked as a data scientist for 4 years.
I quickly grew to hate corporate culture - pointless meetings, bad bosses, long hours, etc.
I did some research and found SEO - search engine optimization - and found that I could make money with it.
The basic idea behind SEO is:
(1) Buy a domain name & hosting plan.
(2) Find "keywords" that people are searching on Google.
(3) Write articles that revolve around these keywords.
(4) Once people find your articles via Google, monetize with ads, affiliate links, or products.
Following this plan, I wrote SEO-optimized for an hour per day outside of my day job.
Slowly, traffic and income grew on my websites.
About 2.5 years after starting, monthly income hit $3k and I quit my day job.
In the last 2.5 years, I've grown monthly income from $3k to $23k
Screenshot of my ad income from the last 30 days for my portfolio of 5 websites:
Now I spend about ~4 hours per day writing SEO-optimized articles for my websites and monetize mostly (90%) with ads.
It's a wonderful schedule and I love owning my time.
For those who are interested in learning SEO from the ground up, I built The Income Community - which teaches the exact SEO strategy I use on my personal sites.
Price is $99 for lifetime access but will increase to $129 on August 1st.
THREAD // On using profitable websites to achieve financial freedom.
1. After working in Corp America for 4 years following college, I felt burnt out and tired of the monotonous schedule so I started looking for alternative ways to earn money.
2. Most alternatives were just side hustles / freelance gigs
e.g.
-Driving for Uber
-Delivering food via DoorDash
-Walking dogs via Rover
-Being a freelance writer
None offered any potential for (1) passive income or (2) exponential income growth
3. But then I found something that did offer potential for (1) passive income and (2) exponential income growth: building profitable websites from scratch.
THREAD // Short summaries of popular finance books
Richest Man in Bablyon: Spend less than you earn and invest the difference. Avoid buying things that have little or no value after a few months. Spend time accumulating skills and knowledge that others will pay you for.
I Will Teach You to Be Rich: Buy a home within your means. Always negotiate salary. Negotiate when buying a car. Keep your cash in online accounts that pay more interest than traditional big banks. Automate savings and investments. Invest in low-cost index funds.
The Millionaire Next Door: Research shows that most households with a net worth above $1 million live in a "stealth wealth" manner, choosing to live in ordinary homes, drive ordinary cars, dress in ordinary attire, and mostly avoid buying status objects.
Wealthy people get to wake up each morning and decide exactly how they'd like to spend their day.
2. The way to gain freedom over your time is to own assets that earn money for you while you sleep.
An asset is anything that tends to increase in value over time or pays you money simply for owning it. Some examples are real estate, stocks, bonds, websites, and businesses.
3. You can buy and/or build these assets.
For example, you could use your paycheck to buy stock index funds.
Or you could dedicate your time to building a website that earns income for you while you sleep through using SEO.
1. Stick to a sleep schedule. "Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day."
2. Exercise is great, but not too late in the day. "Try to exercise at least 30 minutes on most days but not later than two hours before bedtime."
3. Avoid caffeine and nicotine in the afternoon or later.
4. Avoid alcoholic drinks before bed. "You tend to wake up in the middle of the night when the effects of the alcohol have worn off."
5. Avoid large meals and beverages late at night.
6. If possible, avoid medications that delay or disrupt your sleep. "Some commonly prescribed heart, blood pressure, or asthma medications, as well as some over-the-counter and herbal remedies for coughs, colds, or allergies, can disrupt sleep patterns."
Ever since graduating college and working at a traditional 9-5, I hated many aspects of Corporate America including:
-Commutes
-Bad managers
-Performance reviews
-Pointless meetings
-Office politics
-Lack of control over my schedule
I quickly realized that I wanted to achieve financial independence so that I could walk away from a traditional job altogether.
However, starting at $0 it would take me ~16 years to hit F.I. (25x ann expenses) even with a 50% savings rate (assuming 5% ann. returns)
While ~16 years is much shorter than the traditional working period of 40-45 years, I still wasn’t thrilled about the idea of working at a corporate job for a little over a decade to achieve financial independence.
THREAD // Advice on Saving & Investing in Your 20s
1. When you’re just starting out, focus on becoming an income machine, not an investment guru.
2. Don't obsess over finding your passion. Instead, master some skill, interest, or knowledge that others find valuable.
3. Once you do start making serious money, resist the temptation to blow it on lifestyle upgrades.
4. Outside of your day job, become a voracious learner.
5. Aim to minimize the “big three” expenses of housing, transportation, and food. Get these three under control and you can slip up in other areas (entertainment, dining out, etc.) and still not break the bank.