The Backstory

I started out as a digital nomad in August 2015. Originally, I planned on launching a chess app with a puzzle twist. My motivation was that it would allow me to learn marketing through experience, demonstrate my talents as a developer, and potentially result in passive income from ads. This was done to prepare me for launching my true passion project, an app to teach computer engineering. The chess app took me longer than expected. (If you are considering getting into game app development, check out my post on becoming a developer for a much easier way.) This month I took a break from both apps to avoid the holiday app flood and examine other opportunities.

The Goals

I set a deadline to make money by the end of the year or start freelancing.

I then split the month amongst four businesses with about a week for each:
Week 1: My own software to analyze websites for a partnership buying websites with local entrepreneur
Week 2: Building this website
Week 3: Continuing app development to stay fresh (a half-week with the Christmas holiday)
Week 4: Launch a 7-day startup as described in the book on the subject

The Updates

Week 1: The software is working well and we may end up buying a site together before the end of the month. The weekly deadlines already started to blur as I spent more time on this task than I planned.

Week 2: So far the blogging is going well. I have enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. It also provides me with significant value as It allows me to condense and re-examine what I learn, builds my brand, and gives me more experience with building a WordPress site, search engine optimization, and affiliate marketing. I later decided to add this section (Daily Development) to add accountability and replace my offline entrepreneur journal which had previously kept me productive and happy.

Week 3: I ended up skipping this week and splitting it with the previous two projects. It didn’t really seem practical to switch focus in and out for only a week.

Week 4: I have not decided on my 7-day startup yet, but I may launch a website to connect mentors and mentees. I’ll update this post based on the end-of-month results!