Step 2: Get Started on Wifi-Money
Ideas and tools so you can build your ticket to freedom while still at your W2
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First off, a special thank you to the readers who pay to make this newsletter possible.
Your kind words, success stories, and support go a long way.
– Fullstack
So you've got promoted. You're figuring out your W2 performance. You're getting some time back.
You're ready for step 2.
Obviously, and long time readers know this, Step 1 is getting promoted and making optimal income from your W2 tech career. Minimal effort, maximum pay level.
But, Step 2 is how you attempt to gain your freedom.
Step 2 is wifi-money.
tl;dr start today, buy a kvm switch, build your wifi-money on your W2 employer’s time
Step 2: Wifi-Money
Wifi-money: A second source of income from a business you own which can make money while you sleep through the internet.
There are countless ways to do this. The key is to choose one and start. There's a lot of resources (jungle and otherwise) where you can learn how.
If you’re stuck for ideas, here’s a few places that can start opening your mind.
E-commerce: BowTiedOpossum (Twitter, Website), CryptoMouse (Twitter, Newsletter)
Amazon / Drop shipping: BowTiedBroke (Twitter)
Software: PySaas.io (Twitter, Website), BowTiedIguana (Twitter, LizardOS), BowTiedLaunch (Twitter, Newsletter)
Marketing agency: BowTiedMara (Twitter, Newsletter
Substack & paid private communities: BowTiedBull (Twitter, Newsletter), BowTiedBum (Twitter, Newsletter)
Fitness: BowTiedOx (Twitter, Newsletter), Alexander Cortes (Twitter, Newsletter)
Real Estate: BowTiedBroke (Twitter)
Think about your strengths or a skill that you think you could quickly get good at.
Copywriting
Marketing agency
Sales
E-commerce
Software-as-a-Service
If you haven't yet read Efficiency by BowTiedBull, it's a bit dated but still so relevant. It covers in good detail some of the most approachable skills (e-commerce, copywriting, & sales if I remember correctly).
Given you've been reading Fullstack and likely are in a tech career, there's a couple ways you could go.
The most obvious might be turning your technical skills from serving your employer to building up yourself.
Wifi-Money: Build SaaS
Build a fullstack web-app and see if it sticks.
Better yet, launch a landing page and once there's interest, build out an MVP and go from there.
Building your own SaaS outside of the platform teams and unlimited AWS bills of your W2 employer will force you to upgrade your skills.
For example, in the past 2 years of doing this myself, I've had to learn:
Docker
Docker Swarm
Selenium web crawling
Traefik reverse proxies & port forwarding
Java SSL certificates
Configuring MySQL databases
Backing up and restoring databases (after accidentally nuking the production container)
Add optimistic locking to DB transactions
SQL indexes speed up queries a lot!
Backfilling existing data to new schema
How to narrow scope and ship an MVP faster
None of these I learned at my W2. Most of these are done for me or not encountered in my W2 projects.
Learning how has made me more competent at work, and now I almost have an MVP SaaS product ready to sell.
Even if this one fails, the next one will be months or years faster to launch!
Get Started
Get started!
Your first idea might not stick or sell. That's okay!
Get over your need for perfection and start building this week.
Even if it doesn't succeed, the skills you learn and even much of the lower level code you write will be transferable to your next idea.
Start paying down your ignorance debt today and learn how to be a one-man SaaS machine.
Practically, this means that you need to make good use of your time since you're still milking the W2.
Tools to Build Wifi-Money during your W2
Dedicated Wifi-Money Computer
Doing wifi-money work on your work laptop is a sure way to expose yourself to the heightened blood pressure of a JIRA ticket from IT asking why you're SSH-ing into non-approved servers (true story).
Avoid the risk and use your personal computer.
Don't have one? Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace...etc are your friend. Find one that's <1 year old and still under warranty and you'll save 40% + tax on the new price.
If you aren’t willing to buy a commodity easily re-sellable tool (ie. a newish Macbook Pro M1) to build your wifi-money then there’s nothing anyone in the jungle can do to help you.
Worst case, you give up in a few months and resell it and maybe take a $500 loss. Best case, you build a new income stream and this becomes a tax write off.
KVM Switch
Now, with a personal computer for your wifi-money, you need a way to quickly switch between your work computer and your wifi-money computer.
The best way I've found to do this is to get a KVM switch so I can quickly swap throughout the day with a single button. No swapping wires or keyboards.
Get efficient so you can build faster.
Consider this one, on sale today, and still <$100 regularly. It works well with macOS, Windows, Linux and let's you swap keyboard, accessories, and a 4k monitor between two computers at the click of a button. Check the specs for yourself.
For under $100 if you already have a personal computer, or under $3000 if you need to go get one used, you can start building your SaaS product this week.
Limited downside, unlimited upside tools are worth buying yesterday. But today will do.
Start Today
Maybe, you write software at work but have a passion for something else. Cool! Get to doing that!
The point is to choose something, get the minimum necessary tools, and get started building.
Nobody is coming to save you or give you your freedom.
You're going to have to earn it, one income stream at a time.
Get grinding today. You'll thank me that you didn't wait any longer.
If you want to achieve BowTied Bull Step 1 (high income from your career in tech), then you'll probably want to subscribe.
A coffee a month for proven tactics and strategies to land your next promo faster… that sounds like its worth the price of admission.
My colleagues smiling at their bigger paychecks after following my advice and getting early promotions certainly seem to think so.
There's a lot more we need to cover if you're going to make it.
Stay toon'd.
- BowTied Fullstack
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