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How she built her 6-figure freelance writing biz š¤
Welcome to a fresh edition of eBiz Insider, my free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business.
Today...
How She Built Her 6-Figure Freelance Writing Biz
$20 Million Newsletter Formula
His Coding Experiment Turned Into a $30K/Month Business
$100K/Year From Hobby Projects
Get On That Treadmill And Keep Going
1 Year After Starting His Agency = $20,000/Month
3-Year-Old Canadian Newsletter Business Sold for $5 Million
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How She Built Her 6-Figure Freelance Writing Biz
Alli Hill is a freelance writer, content marketer, and the founder of Fleurish Freelance, where she teaches others how to build a freelance biz.
š Alli writes about her journey in a recent interview, starting in 2016ā¦
I went from $0 to a steady six-figure salary in less than three years.
She was working a day job (as a mom of 2) andā¦
My boss asked me to level up my marketing skills so I could handle more duties for his business (with no discussion of a pay increase).
Insteadā¦
I put my new marketing skills to work for myself.
I landed a few content writing clients after about two weeks of prospecting. This helped me build a real portfolio, which helped me continue to get clientsā¦
Good old-fashioned job boards led me to my first few clients. Without a website, blog, or any other online presence.
š¬ She addsā¦
The first year was a struggle in terms of time management, simply because I was still working my full-time job while trying to build my business.
I wanted to ensure my success was sustainable and not just beginnerās luck.
š How Alli got tractionā¦
I prioritized online reviews and referrals from previous clients and industry connections. To start collecting reviews, I joined Fiverr as a seller, which allowed me to shift to an inbound marketing approach.
I also focused on agency relationshipsā¦ Agencies handle the day-to-day efforts of generating leadsā¦ which leaves me more time to create the content without wasting time on non-billable activities.
She didnāt quit her day job untilā¦
I was spending more time on my side hustle than my day job. It was a natural progression, and Iām glad I waited because it gave me the confidence I needed to keep going.
Check out Alliās Fiverr profile here, with 1200 five-star ratings š¤Æ
Breaking down Alli's steps to successā¦
Try selling your services via marketplace sites like Fiverr
Build up reviews
Utilize those reviews to find more clients and partner with agencies
Alliās advice for others š
Just start. You donāt have to have all the answers, a foolproof plan, or thousands of dollars in savings. Motivation follows action, so take the first step and get things moving.
š freelance writing | permalink
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ā¹ļø full disclosure | sponsorship info
His Coding Experiment Turned Into a $30K/Month Business
šŖšø Alvaro Trigo is the Spaniard behind fullPage.js, a JavaScript plugin that helps you "create beautiful fullscreen scrolling websites"
Alvaro wrote in a recent interviewā¦
fullPage.js alone makes around $12K/month nowadays, and its maximum was $20K in one month.
He has built multiple similar plugins and saysā¦
The whole business makes around $30K/month.
š How Alvaro got startedā¦
When I was working as a web developer, I had to create a simple site, and I was suggested to mimic a PowerPoint style.
So, looking for inspiration, I came up with the idea of making a full-screen scrollable site.
I was surprised to find out there were no components for web developers to speed up this process, so after building the page, I thought it would be a great idea to create my first plugin.
That first plugin took him a couple of weeks to build with ~300 lines of codeā¦
That was when my first product came out. In fact, it wasn't even a product, as I didn't charge anything for it. The component was fully free for about 3 years.
Soon after launchā¦
some people sent me emails asking for specific customizationsā¦ I would deal with them one by one by email and provide them with a quote to create a custom version of the component for them.
Then š
I started to notice some people were asking for exactly the same changes or features as others.
So I thought I could probably create those as extensions to the main component. This way they could just purchase and use them right away without any direct contact with me.
He addsā¦
In the first month, I released about 3 extensions and made more than $1K. I was impressed! I didn't expect it to work out that well!
I'm sure it helped that the main plugin was free for people to use, so it could gain popularity š and send more potential customers Alvaro's way.
His plugin is still freely available on GitHub for open-source projects. For commercial projects, people have to pay for a license, with prices ranging from $15/month to $477 one-time.
3 years after Alvaro released the first version of his plugin ā "with no experience and as an experiment to improve my skills" ā he was able to quit his day job and now runs his own business with a small team šŖ
I love how he got the idea for his plugin while working as a web developer.
Keep an eye out for problems and pain points you encounter in your daily work š
Could you come up with a solution for one of those and turn it into a business?
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š $100K/Year From Hobby Projects
From the archive, published October 2022ā¦
Thatās the best way I can describe the projects of Rob Hope, interviewed here.
His main project seems to be One Page Love, a collection of āone Page websites, templates and resources.ā
One of Robās first projects, way back in 2008, was CaseConverter.com. He built that āto help clean up my clientsā poorly formatted Word Docs of content.ā
He eventually sold the site for $805 š„³
Check out Robās project graveyard here.
As he describes itā¦
I hope this graveyard inspires you to take risks and work on those passion projects. Itās ok to fail. Every side project I launched provided lessons for the next and in turn helped me quit freelance.
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