Getting Serious About Self-Employment

Let me introduce myself. I'm an employee of a Fortune 40 company where I've been employed for four years. Last month I was informed my position will be terminated in April. While this did not come as a surprise, it's still not something I look forward to, especially in these economic times.

Last week my church sponsored a small business seminar. I think pretty much everyone who has ever worked for someone else has thought about running their own business someday. I'm not exception. The reality is, if I don't find a job withing a few months, I may have to try my hand at it. So a little up-front advice wouldn't hurt.

I came away fairly convinced that I can't start a brick-and-mortar business right now. But I also came away with an idea for an ebook to try selling online. The trouble is that it would involve partnering with my wife, who has not been all that thrilled with the idea of me starting my own business.

It turns out she likes the idea. We got to bed late that night from brainstorming ideas. We decided to give this a try, as the initial outlay is fairly low and the payoff could be well worth it. But it's not something we'll be able to do overnight. We want to do this right, so that we can open up several potential revenue streams at once.

What it involves (I'm going to avoid details for now) is establishing a web site with accompanying weblogs all aimed at our particular niche market. We want to load it up with unique and credible content that will drive traffic to our site. When the traffic numbers are looking decent we'll add some of the simpler revenue streams like web-ads, tip-jars, or affiliate programs.

When the traffic hits a higher goal we'll then try selling our ebook. Though it will be on the same topic as the rest of the site, we're hoping to provide new content with value-added components that will make it worth paying a few bucks for. If we have enough customers it could add up to some serious money.

But at the moment there is still much to plan, much to decide. And that's what this blog is all about--the process of getting from here to there.