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allaboutberlin.com. I'm self-employed, and I have no direct customers. So long as my bills are paid, everything else is extra. I can invest time into more, better content, but I can also mess around with things that don't make money. More often than not, they turn out to do just that. "If you build it, they will come."

Mind you, I still have to work, but there's rarely anything that needs to be done right now, unless I goofed up while fiddling with nginx.

Before that I was a contractor for a year or two. After seeing contracting colleagues disappear for months-long vacations, I wanted in on that.

Before that I was a regular employee in Europe, where work culture is far more relaxed. I had more vacation days as an intern than my parents in the home country ever had. I also became really good at aggressively cutting meetings for me and my team, which gave us more time to experiment without affecting output.

In Germany, you also have the right to reduce your work hours. Coincidentally, that's the article I'm currently working on.

There's a minimum number of frogs that you have to eat. Mine is very low out of sheer luck. However there are different ways to bring most people's number down, starting with don't glorify eating frogs.




How do you make money from that website? Seems like you have a donate button. But other than that?


Affiliate links on things an immigrant needs during their journey. There's enough genuine demand to skip the sales pitch entirely. The quality of the advice gives the rare product recommendations a lot of weight.


That is a great website. Very well thought out and actionable. That model can surely be replicated for other arenas. You have actually thought about what people need and given an easy way to find it. Big props for that!


What a great website, and nicely organized, and also well written. Congrats!


What's the business model for allaboutberlin.com, if you don't mind me asking?


It's essentially the same question as the original question - how can you afford to only work when you want?


coincidentally, i'm sure the rent freeze has had a positive effect on your ability to pay your bills without stress


The rent freeze that was retroactively cancelled? No. It didn't help anyone.




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