Possible to be self employed in 1.5 years?

I've been lurking here for several months now. Put up a few websites and tried to apply what I've learned but it's been hard to motivate myself to put my full effort into it. I have a day job, and I have several very illustrious IT Security certifications.

In about 1.5 years I will be doing through a big transitional period in my life, and the certs I have will make it fairly easy for me to get a job. However I'm fairly certain I don't want to work for other people. I want to work for myself, and do things that I enjoy, and that I find important, not something someone else who started a company finds important. Part of the problem though is I feel like I need to put those certs to good use if I delve into IM full time.

Cool thing about this is my wife is really interested in IM as well, and we've talked about just going into this full blown and seeing where we end up in 1.5 years, but again its hard for me to motivate myself because I feel like I worked my tail off to get these certs and I should use them. I've thought about trying to find a niche that lets me draw upon the skills and experience I've developed but I am fearful any sort of computer security keyword oriented niche is gonna have me competing with the likes of the big antivirus and security software companies, so I'm drawing a blank.

TLDR; Is it possible to enjoy a modest lifestyle and be self employed doing IM if I go from like $1/week websites to able to support the lifestyle I want in 1.5 years? And is there anyway I've not thought of that I can use my certs to my advantage?

It is possible to go to that in 1 month if you put in hard work. It's all about hitting the right trends at the right times. Set up your portfolio in the time being for niches that wont die and make yourself an authority site. Good luck dude. I'm on my way, making about 30/day!

1.5 years, might wanna hang it up. 120-180 days.

Haha, well I still have to work the day job for another 1.5 years, so I can't go IM full time just yet. My wife and I have an idea about building 3 different large authority sites, and I think I've done the keyword research well enough, and with certain products and services coming into being in the near future I feel the potential is there.

But I see alot of stuff here on BHW where people have like 15-20 different sites and blog, but I'm assuming those are microniches? Is 3 authority sites and an occasional PPC campaign sufficient?

bigchief said:

Is 3 authority sites and an occasional PPC campaign sufficient?

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If your 3 authority sites are self sufficient then yes

By self sufficient I mean that each site makes enough money to support itself by paying for servers, advertising, employees (if needed), etc.

You could just have 1 authority site with a great PPC campaign and be set.


I would focus on just 1 site at a time, don't jump into everything at once because you'll feel like you've been swamped with work. Build your site, set up a PPC campaign, and then bootstrap the hell out of it. Boostrapping = putting all your profits back into advertising

If you're determined I would say you could make a decent amount from your site(s) in around 6 months. Once your first site plateaus then set up your second site and use profits from site one to push site two

If you are just starting out and lack motivation, I'm afraid you are in trouble.
Honestly, if you're just starting out, it should be the only thing on your mind, the only thing you want to do, period.

When you're not working for someone, it is hard to motivate yourself at times. That's why I said if you already have no motivation, it's a problem. I've been doing this for 14 years and when I first started, I couldn't get enough, which is why I was successful. Then I did lose motivation. I got comfortable, I didn't make new goals. And everything slowly faded. I still had money coming in, but was getting less and less. And I had to motivation because I was still surviving. Honestly, I really just costed the last 10 years of my life, and it's depressing. But I have been back busting my ass pretty much since January. Every single day, sometimes 14 hours a day.

Try to focus and be constant, I sometimes find there are so many different ideas, and techniques, that you try to do a bit of everything and nothing really well.

Blackhatworld is great, but sometimes you need to get to try to get to work or you just get absorbed by it