Here's my experiences for last year in passive income:
Total Gross Revenues: $20,000 or so.
Mostly from a single high-traffic niche site which I promote almost exclusively through social media. My site offers a free version of what a few other websites in the same niche offer as a SaaS service.
From that same site, most of the revenue (~80%) is from ads (ad revenue increased when switching to responsive units). Next, Amazon associate makes up about 15% of the revenue. And about 5% from donations.
The downside is that ad rates are DROPPING pretty quickly, ad-block usage rates are increasing rapidly, some browsers block ads by default now, etc. So I'm trying to get off of ad dependency.
I'm thinking in the future a Patreon funded project or project with additional SaaS component will probably fare better if you traffic is at least medium size (~50k/mo+), and comprised of repeat visitors.
I also have eBooks, which despite the rapid increase in popularity of Amazon authors, seem to be doing well. My most popular eBook is bringing in ~40$ / mo on the 35% plan (I can't use the 70% plan because someone stole it and uploaded it elsewhere). The rest of my eBooks are bringing in ~$20 total. If you have expertise, and strong communication skills - eBooks may be a good route to go down. Leanpub offers higher % rate, and I've seen some technical authors make a killing there - might be a better option.
As far as stocks go, I'm all invested in Vanguard which seems to like tech stocks - so not so great this year. The high-dividend yield funds are probably the way to go in 2016 since growth growth isn't so hot right now.
I would stay away from IoS & Android because app discovery is messed up, and you need a marketing budget in most scenarios to make it big.
I don't spend as much, and yes, coffee can be so much cheaper, but it's also not a lot of money.
Interestingly, the following guy has a recurring theme on how trying to save on lattes is inefficient and distracting (similar to the idea of premature optimization in code):
I'm interested in your path to the free SaaS tool. Do you think it would be viable to outsource the creation of tools to compete with popular, paid ones, offer the outsourced tool for free, and rake in ad-revenue/e-book sales? With proper marketing and seo a person could probably break even within a few months.
I've never outsourced anything, because I've found that usually websites end up with a "core audience", aka maybe 100-500 people who make up the bulk of discussion, feedback, etc. I like to build relationships with these people, to better understand my audience. Plus they usually market my sites for me. It's a pretty painstakingly long process though.
On the other hand, I've read about owners of tools (like ListenToYouTube, W3Counter) - who run just a tool by itself with little or no social features.
If it's just the tool the audience wants, it may be totally possible to outsource the creation - and than just focus on marketing it. I'd like to see someone take a SaaS tool, outsource the development - release it for free (ad-funded or similar) and post a case study.
Could you talk about how you're promoting on social media?
Are you building relationships with influencers and getting promoted to their audiences, or have you found tactics / channels to drive traffic directly that works well for you?
70% is if you sign a document promising not to publish your eBook on any other websites. Standard rate is 35%. Someone rebranded my most popular eBook and uploaded it to a bunch of small eBook websites. Amazons filters caught it, and I was told if I take them down from the third party sites I'll get full revenue share again - but emails didn't cut it with some of the little players (no responses), and it's not enough money to hire a lawyer over.
Total Gross Revenues: $20,000 or so.
Mostly from a single high-traffic niche site which I promote almost exclusively through social media. My site offers a free version of what a few other websites in the same niche offer as a SaaS service.
From that same site, most of the revenue (~80%) is from ads (ad revenue increased when switching to responsive units). Next, Amazon associate makes up about 15% of the revenue. And about 5% from donations.
The downside is that ad rates are DROPPING pretty quickly, ad-block usage rates are increasing rapidly, some browsers block ads by default now, etc. So I'm trying to get off of ad dependency.
I'm thinking in the future a Patreon funded project or project with additional SaaS component will probably fare better if you traffic is at least medium size (~50k/mo+), and comprised of repeat visitors.
I also have eBooks, which despite the rapid increase in popularity of Amazon authors, seem to be doing well. My most popular eBook is bringing in ~40$ / mo on the 35% plan (I can't use the 70% plan because someone stole it and uploaded it elsewhere). The rest of my eBooks are bringing in ~$20 total. If you have expertise, and strong communication skills - eBooks may be a good route to go down. Leanpub offers higher % rate, and I've seen some technical authors make a killing there - might be a better option.
As far as stocks go, I'm all invested in Vanguard which seems to like tech stocks - so not so great this year. The high-dividend yield funds are probably the way to go in 2016 since growth growth isn't so hot right now.
I would stay away from IoS & Android because app discovery is messed up, and you need a marketing budget in most scenarios to make it big.