By Julie Masajada
Venturing Into the Work from Home Jungle
I've been exploring work from home opportunities for the last six to eight months or so. Until recently, I've only had a smartphone to "work" from, and I've been stuck with primarily playing mindless games and answering surveys, and I'm actually happy to say that I have come across a couple legitimate sites that actually pay, but more on that in a bit.
As I have mentioned before, I have been a stay-at-home mom since I left the
Women in Military Memorial in the early 2k's. As such, I've tried a plethora of platforms to make money from home through the years, most of them involved selling/ MLM in some way. I tried various opportunities from Pampered Chef to Home Interiors, Mary Kay, Avon- you get the picture. Now that our youngest has left for college, and I have access to her working computer, I decided to expand my search, and try new methods to make money from home, and report the results to you.
The Challenges of Launching a New Business Without Capital
The problem I'm experiencing in my work from home journey is two-fold. First, I am a disabled female entrepreneur and have been a
SAHM for the last twenty plus years, Second centers around difficulties with business funding. I've been attempting to start my business from scratch with no capital and hoping to get enough "Organic Traffic" to at least start investing back into my endeavor. My goal is to create and maintain a sustainable home-based venture. One that can not only serve my family's financial needs, but also add digital value.
In order to do this, I've got to look beyond a simple "paycheck for myself" and create an authentic business model that provides valuable information, products and services to my readers. However, the path has been a rocky one, with many financial challenges. Starting without capital has proven a formidable hurdle I've struggled to navigate. Each step I make requires meticulous planning and a resourceful mind to work through the complexities of building a business from zero.
Realities of Creating a Sustainable Business Model
Contrary to the promise of quick cash echoed in online videos, the climb is steep. Add to that the lack of startup funding and the difficulties compound leading to a frustration that compels many aspiring entrepreneurs to simply give up and explore more conventional avenues. I aim to spotlight these struggles and provide a realistic portrait of entrepreneurship through a unique perspective.
And almost all of the WFH videos I have viewed state how simple it is to use their system. I'm here to tell you that unless you have a minimum budget of a few hundred bucks to start out, you're gonna have a hard time getting started, probably get frustrated, and quit. In order to quickly have a "passive income system", you either need a platform with a few thousand subscribers, a bunch of money to throw at advertising and tech issues, or both. That and an adequate amount of time. Writing takes time. Posting links takes time. Especially when you are just starting out.
Debunking the Myth of Instant Success
In order to even begin to make things succeed you will have to put time into your side hustles. A lot of time, way more than I originally anticipated. I'd love to say writing, which has been a passion of mine since I was a wee
pirate, is a quick and easy side hustle, but it's taken me a few hours just to put this article together, and as I look at the clock it's approaching 2AM!
The Digital Service Subscription Dilemma
Another thing I've discovered in the last three weeks of this journey, is that in order to make it successful, you have to open a lot of accounts. Accounts for mailing, accounts for banking, other accounts to claim the funds from the account you just opened, you get the pic.
This is due to something called "net neutrality". You may have heard me mention this before, but the end of net neutrality has allowed every venture to charge clients every step along the way. A sort of digital À la carte so to speak. I listened to my husband rant about this subject for months on end and didn't think too much about it. Now it's reared its ugly head. Sorry, my love.
The effects of Net Neutrality in the Digital World
You can actually see the ramification from the cancellation of
net neutrality everywhere now. Most companies are now able to sell services as a subscription. And usually they offer layers of subscriptions, each one costing increasingly more, while adding additional benefits. So, you end up with a subscription to this service, and one to that TV platform, and pretty soon, you need a service to manage all of your subscriptions. Guess what? They'll happily give you a subscription and take your money too.
Heck, there's even a service to check through your subscriptions and alert to you to the ones you aren't using, effectively saving you money. Expect to setup a subscription for this type of service as well.
Some of these services are tricky as well. Most will offer a free trial period. The majority of these require a credit card to get started that they will charge at the end of the trial period.
The Proliferation of Subscription Services and Multiple Accounts
For example, I made an account on a business email service recently. This isn't just an email address, this service will automatically answer your emails with a canned reply, and can be setup for many automations, such as forwarding your mail, and sending emails at certain times that are preset by you. There are a host of other features I've yet to explore.
Cool, I thought, so I did a little digging and found a promising site that had the most generous trial period. The company is called
Constant Contact and offers an unheard of two-month free trial period. I was looking forward to setting up my account and trying out their services. Surely, two months' time would allow me to get comfortable with the controls so to speak.
Shortly after I setup my first automation order, my account was suspended. Now anyone trying to make money online organically will probably tell you, account suspensions are par for the course. Even so, I emailed their support desk to inquire on my account.
That's when it was explained to me that the automation service that I was seeking, was subscription only. Not only that, but it was only available on the top two tiers. I apparently failed to realize this from the start. Basically, I had just signed up for a brick. I thanked the gentleman, and went along my way,
That is until I got a reminder yesterday telling me I had a tele meeting with Mr. X at 11:30. As I'm thinking to myself "I don't remember scheduling a tele-meeting" my phone began ringing. Oh boy.
So, I answered it and was greeted by the account specialist I had spoken to after my account was suspended, and then reinstated. Mr. X. immediately began his spiel, and when he started asking me technical questions, I panicked, and threw my phone at Dean. Sorry again, Dear. You see, Dean is not only my loving husband, he's also my management consultant, and my technical advisor as well!
A now confused Mr. X begins his script again, this time on Dean. When Dean wasn't receptive to what Mr. X was saying, Mr. X started to push even harder, prompting a heated conversation and a hurried goodbye as he explained that this was simply the "nature of the beast" and the norm for affiliate marketing.
Because this email service platform is so crucial to making money with affiliate marketing, I understand I will have to invest money soon if I expect to grow. I'm fine with that, except, don't advertise a great thing, only to hold out on the most popular feature. Also, don't call me to try to squeeze a sale from me two weeks into a 60-day trial period. Unfortunately for Constant Contact, this turned me off, and I will take my business to another platform. Let me tell you, there's big money to be made out here- by everyone else but you. George Carlin said it best. "It's a big club. And you ain't in it"!
Anyway, getting back to À la carte subscription services, I've found that making money online follows the same exact premise. As an example, I'm writing this on a free platform, which is apparently the first no-no I discovered as I continued my journey. On the outside, most sites and channels will tell you how simple things are for a noob like me. It's not until you start hitting your first roadblocks, that you discover there's more to this than meets the eye. These things they don't tell you from the start, and if you've stuck with me so far, I thank you. I'm hopeful I can help someone with my experiences.
Wading Through the Haze of Web Hosting and Domain Registration
In order to be recognized as a reliable source of information and be respected in the community, apparently, you must have a self-hosted blog. If you aren't familiar with self-hosting, allow me to enlighten you. Self-hosting a blog, or any website for that matter involves first choosing a web host provider. These are usually fairly cheap as long as you pay in blocks of a year or more. You end up paying between 50-100 bucks and in return you have rented a digital storage facility for so many years.
Next up is securing a domain name. After you've figured that out, then you must register that name so no one else uses it. Basically, a name rental, which also last a limited time as well. Sometimes, you can get a free domain that comes bundled with guess what? None other than a subscription service! Surprise!
So, you rent space on a server, and you pay for your Uniform Resource Locater (URL), basically the online path to your website. Which you then have to build as well. Or you can go on a site like
Fiverr.com and hire someone to build your website for you. One thing I forget to mention is every step along the way I had to continue opening new accounts at each site, that I was then encouraged to completely fill out my profile for each one. As you can imagine, these subscriptions begin to add up rather quickly. You can easily go from work-from-home to pay-from-home as you start to fund everyone else's endeavor.
Seeking Success and Avoiding the Pitfalls of Affliliate Marketing
As some of you know, I've been giving affiliate marketing a shot, (and thank you so much to those who have clicked on my links, it's much appreciated). I am also researching and learning about a couple other avenues that were recently unveiled to me for making a steady passive income stream from home. Both of these opportunities are much more in-depth, and actually require a bit of training, which is provided free of charge The training is fairly interactive and does require your active participation.
As both involve a fair amount of study and exam, I will report everything I learn here once I've completed the academies. Speaking of which, if your technical knowledge is limited, you will need to find assistance in doing some of these tasks, such as installing plug-ins, and copy pasting HTML. Thankfully, I'm married to a technical wizard, and I don't have to pay for support. Although, eventually, I may have to add him to the payroll, lol.
Hopefully, my friend, you are beginning to see a clearer picture of the work from home business scheme I've been researching through my eyes. And one thing you should understand clearly, if you are hoping to make a bunch of money after watching some videos on YouTube, you might want to think again. Unless you already have a dense online presence, with a few thousand followers, expect to pay heavily for advertising to drive traffic to your site.
Trying to get traffic to your products on platforms like Facebook has become increasingly tricky. Most groups will not let you post direct links, I've even read it's against fakebook's policy. So, you are relegated to posting vague messages about making money fishing for replies. These posts start getting spammy quick, plus they are a hassle to keep up with if you get a lot of replies.
Once you begin receiving replies, you can start answering each and every person who comments on your message. That is if you can get even the message posted at all. Nine out of ten pages I posted messages on deleted or rejected the posts, and a few even suspended my account. If you abuse this rule, I'm pretty sure you'll be thrown in the
Gulag!
So, as of now, I'm still navigating this overgrown, thick trail, my trusty technical advisor by my side. I will continue to report on which work from home schemes worked for me, and what didn't work.
Also, just in case you forgot, I have two opportunities to share with you today. Neither will make you rich, or serve as an income stream, but I did actually make a little bit cash from both- one quite a bit more than the other.
A Glimpse into Survey-Based Earnings
The first opportunity is
Quorum Research. This one you have to wait for an email from them to onboard onto their platform. Once I got an email inviting to open my account, I began to build my profile. The first opportunity I was given was a survey on Forecasting. Now if you're like me you're asking yourself "Forecasting, what the heck is that"?
Well it's a complex way of asking you to predict the outcome of certain things and situations that may or may not happen in the future. This may include financial situations and other events, and your opinion of the outcome. One thing I want to mention is you have to open an account with their payment provider, which is called
Stripe. This will ensure your money goes into your account. A few days after filling out the survey, five dollars posted to my stripe account, and was then transferred to my bank. Easy money.
Now for the bad news. I haven't had a single survey invite on Quorum since the first one. I've read that unless you fit into a very specific niche of people, your opportunities may be limited. Still, five bucks is five bucks, right?
Online Cash Games: Separating Myth from Reality
When I first began trying side-hustles, I started with online games. There are numerous sites online promising money in exchange for your time, some clicks, and a few dozen ads every hour. I have tried tons of these games, each claiming anywhere from a few bucks up to hundreds in a given time. Out of all the ones I tried, every one of them was fake! Every. Single. One.
Which is why last week, when I was asked to try my next offering, I expected pretty much the same experience. Now this won't make you rich by any means, but it will get you enough for a tank of gas, or beer money, or a little date night with your sweety. I've been playing the games on this platform for about ten days now, and as of this article, I've made almost $100.
Now, I know to most people $100 isn't a lot, but most of these games are simple Idle Clickers, or mindless slot machines and solitaire. There are some games and tasks that you do have to pay for if you wish to play them. I have avoided these and will continue to do so in the future. Once you complete the required levels and coins, your earnings will be payable to your PayPal account.There are many other payout options, including several crypto platforms including Bitcoin, Dogecoin and others. You can also cash out to a nice variety of gift cards ranging from Amazon, Visa, Apple, Netflix and PlayStation to name a few.
You must reach certain requirements to cash out including earning enough coins and advancing a certain number of levels during a set period of days. If you're interested in earning some easy free money, then please follow this
link to Free Cash to sign up.
Please Comment Below and Tell Me Your Thoughts
So now we've reached the end of my thoughts. If you're on a similar journey, I'd love to hear about your experiences. Also, if you have any comments or suggestions, please share them below. If there is a work-from-home opportunity you'd like me to try, post a link below. If it's something I think I'd be into, I'll try it, and report back on it here.
Also, I would not be doing my job if I didn't include at least a few affiliate links at the end. Check them out if you'd like and thank you if you do. There really are some neat products, and possibly some cool gift ideas. Also, I'm obligated to tell you I'm an Amazon affiliate and therefore may earn a small commission if you make a purchase (at no cost to you). So, thanks for stopping by, and if you stayed with me all the way to the end you truly are my people. Thank you for your support. Love and Peace✌
#Ad
Thanks for looking! Have a great day!
Comments
Post a Comment