Captain’s log, stardate 20171110

“What if I get hit by a bus (and survive)?”

Sent by Jonathan Stark on November 10th, 2017

A long-time reader recently asked me if I thought all freelancers should be working on products to mitigate the inherent risk of being a company of one. (h/t MP!)

For example, what if you were injured or sick and couldn't work for six months? What would happen to your business (and your life)?

My first thought was, “Well, that's what disability insurance is for.”

But the question got me thinking. What ways can independent software professionals set up a diversified revenue stream that would continue with little or no intervention.

Here's a list of suggestions based on things that I or my friends are actually selling:

Podcast sponsorships—I know a number people who make four and five figures per episode from sponsorships. If you had co-hosts or could find a substitute host, you could continue the show indefinitely with very little attention.
Mailing list sponsors—I know a few people who are doing four and five figures per month selling sponsorships in their weekly “link roundup” emails. For this to run on auto-pilot or close to it, you'd probably have to hire a decent VA and give them a clear SOP.
Paid communities—I know a few people doing four figures per month with membership sites or paid Slack rooms. Depending on the expectations, you could potentially not show up for a long time before you started getting a lot of churn. Even if you did have to show up a couple times per week, it would be very little work.
Info products—I know tons of people who are doing four to five figures (some of them high five figures) with info products like ebooks, email courses, video courses, etc. Of all the ideas on this list, info products are probably the most hands off. Once you have a system set up, your info products will continue to sell on their own with almost zero intervention until people don't care about the topic anymore.

Did I leave anything out? Hit reply and let me know what I forgot to include.

Yours,

—J