It’s been a few months since my last post on quitting the 9-5. But trust me, when I say I’ve made some great strides towards self-employed life.
This post is an update on everything I’ve done and planned in the last 3 months – ever since I handed in my work notice way back in April!
A Personal Update
The first big update is, I’ve officially left the 9 to 5! Monday was my last day, and I’m now taking a slow few days while we sort out the last life admin bits and settle down in Lisbon.
On another note, we’ve officially moved to Lisbon! We have an apartment, bought all the essential IKEA furniture and we’ve arranged for the rest of our belongings to be shipped over from Seville by the end of the month. Yes we came from London, but we’ve had all our belongings in storage the last few months.
There’s only a few life admin bits left to wrap up now, but everything is in motion. We’re finally starting to feel at home here – and I feel the entrepreneurial side of me come alive!
My Business News
In the past month, I started and finished putting together my offer: Web3 SEO. I’ve spoken to several crypto companies and Web3 marketing agencies about how I might be able to feed into their SEO needs.
That’s my service, and I’ll try to refine my niche even further over the next few months. I’ve already started offering free audits to prospects in hopes of a paid contract, but so far — no bites. That’s fine though, since I planned to spend the next six months focusing on iterating on my offer and the general marketing around it. Of course, my life is more than just Web3 SEO, so I’m really just planning to spend two or three days a week on this in the short-term.
MVP Freebies
I’m also beginning to experiment with more basic audits – for example, an SEO content audit or quick technical audit (that takes an hour to complete) vs a full-scale complete SEO audit (that would take a few days). My first few audits were really in-depth in the hope of sharing as much value with potential clients as possible. However, I’d like to save my time in the short-term by offering a smaller-scale audit. That way I’d be able to complete 5-10 such audits in a single day, while still giving each prospect something actionable! After all, I don’t want prospects to feel guilty about not buying from me. It’s a numbers game, and I just need to figure out a way to share an MVP of initial value to many prospects before providing insane amounts of value to my paying clients.
Prospecting Tips
The next point that ties into the above is how I plan to find new clients. I got some great recommendations from my Web3 Twitter friends. All the Web3 and Crypto companies that have recently gotten funding for their projects are listed on websites like DeFiLlama. Since this is the niche that I’ll be targeting in the beginning, it makes sense to reach out to these companies after doing an initial free audit. For example, I can look at their page contents and give a few free SEO tips in a Loom video format the first time I reach out to them. Then I can offer my Calendly link if they’d like to discuss these recommendations further. And of course, I’d be able to offer my services to support with implementing the recommendations.
And of course, let me know if you’re interested in my SEO services!
My Long-term Value
Overall, my goal is to start building long-term value. Consulting and Done-For-You services are great for generating reliable income in the short-term, but my goal is to increase my business portfolio’s passive income. I’m specifically referring to digital products that can be created once and sold over and over. I’ve already launched my first free Stoicism ebook. And now that I’ve popped my ebook cherry, there’s less pressure on my next release!
Of course, I want to align all my activities as much as possible so it doesn’t just feel like I’m running in 20 different directions at once. That’s why I’ll be launching several SEO-related products over the coming months. That way my content can gear both towards businesses that need SEO support, as well as freelancers and entrepreneurs that need actionable SEO advice.
Some of the product ideas I’ve come up with include:
- The SEO Content Guide for Web3 Founders
- The Technical SEO Roadmap for Web3 Projects
- SEO FAQs – What the hell is organic search anyway?
The Audience Plans
I’ve been taking Twitter seriously the last few months and have started building a following. Sure, growth has been relatively slow, as I’ve averaged one new follower per day. But I’m really excited to spend a larger portion of my day creating great content and engaging with the network. I’m hoping to ramp up my growth with new multimedia content.
LinkedIn is another valuable and under-utilized network. Too many people only post about new employment status, job promotions or their awesome new product. But if you can make content that focuses on providing your audience value, you’ll have the upper-hand on this self-centered, professional platform.
But regardless of the platform, you don’t really own your social media following. The platform can make a single algorithm update, and you lose everything. I can NOT afford to take that risk. I need to diversify and own my audience.
That’s why I’m starting Day Job Detox, a newsletter that dives into my entrepreneurial journey. This newsletter can be separated into several sections:
- An actionable SEO tip
- An entrepreneurial tip, tool or insight
- A productivity tip
- An aligned mental health insight
- One more cool thing
Of course, I’ve also launched Day Job Detox as a podcast and YouTube channel to share similar tips in audio and video format.
To be honest, there’s not much to write home about at this stage… But watch this space in the coming months!
In A Nutshell
Of course, I’m still figuring things out.
I have some big plans and I know a big part of success comes down to luck. But my number one priority is action. I need to start doing things to set myself up for good luck. Also I need to see what works and what doesn’t.
I feel like I’ve planned so many things. I need to balance it all in a way that I continue to make money to supplement my lifestyle in the short-term, and also set myself up to reap the passive rewards of selling digital products to a growing audience.
Since I’m still so early on the journey, this is all very much Plan A. I’ll need to get punched in the face a couple times before I figure out what my next priorities should be. But it never hurts to have a clear starting point!
I’ll leave you on that note. Please feel free to follow and let me know any questions or feedback on my approach.
Until later my productive friend,
Jesper