Ahoy mates,
I hope this finds you well and filled with entrepreneurial spirit!
Today, I bring you an inspiring story from BowTiedHalibut, a seasoned professional who took the leap from consulting with government agencies and healthcare institutions to becoming an independent online entrepreneur.
His experience sheds light on the advantages of self-employment, showcasing how it puts you at the helm of your income and destiny.
In his thought-provoking guest Substack, Halibut highlights the following key benefits of the online entrepreneurship path:
🚀 Control Your Income: No more being confined by a fixed salary. Discover the unrestricted potential of e-commerce and affiliate marketing to boost your earnings and attain financial freedom.
💼 Be Your Own Boss: Wave goodbye to the constraints of conventional employment. Forge your own path, make decisions independently, and prioritize your goals and values in your business.
💻 Flexible Work-Life Balance: Achieve the freedom to set your own hours, work from anywhere, and spend more quality time with loved ones. Efficiency and convenience blend seamlessly into your entrepreneurial adventure.
Halibut's entrepreneurial transition not only demonstrates the vast possibilities that lie within the online realm, but also how they can positively impact individuals seeking personal and professional growth.
His experience serves as a guiding light for those yearning for independence and fulfillment.
If you’re on X, do yourself a favor and follow him!
And without further ado, please take a moment to read about BowTiedHalibut’s inspiring Wifi money journey! 🔽
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Here’s an overview of my WIFI Money journey, things that have gone well, times that it did not at all, and what I am working on to exit stage left by 2035.
I’m the jungle’s resident fishing junkie. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my mom when I was deep into the tournament fishing scene. I was telling her I needed to be on the water Wednesday and Thursday so I would be dialed in to do well in the tournaments. She asked me, what are all the rest of these guys doing for jobs that allow them to fish on Wednesday.
So, I looked around and started asking questions and it became real apparent if someone didnt come from money, they owned their own business. I saw a path I needed to work for myself and set my own schedule.
Directly out of university I was fortunate to land at an organization funded by a large government agency to specifically focus on commercializing intellectual property. I got a crash course in early stage technology companies ranging from semiconductor to data storage to software of all shapes, sizes, and colors.
I have been fortunate to leverage relationships from those four years to bounce around from project to project and then in parallel working on my own. I started consulting very early in my career and left the W2 to focus on clients. My wifi journey was very heavy consulting with a bigger focus on being work from home and schedule flexibility.
I never did the same type of consulting project twice, for better or for worse, I’ve always been a generalist instead of selling one solution that I do. I did research for a digital asset company that eventually was acquired for a large sum by a major payment processing company.
I managed a manufacturing company downsizing plans as they shipped everything overseas and modernized their operations and sales tools stateside. I helped coordinate events for mobile developers. I built out a web portal for an insurance company bringing a new savings card to market and many other smaller projects. I’ve been managing and putting together remote teams of people from around the world since it was still oDesk.
I toss all of these random projects into my wifi journey because I was gaining freedom in my schedule to fish when I wanted and more importantly stock from every one of these projects along the way. You don’t get what you don't ask for and in the early stage space most founders are cash poor and stock rich so I always recommend getting what you need from a cash perspective, but at the end ask for equity. The one that got acquired for a large sum was what enabled me to take my first big swing at a real wifi opportunity that I controlled 100%.
It blew up though. I lost almost all of that money on a mobile app business to end up with lackluster engagement and unable to secure funding outside of F&F. Just because you cash checks by bringing a handful of angel investors early stage deals that do well, doesn’t mean they are going to invest in your deal just because. Big humbling moment in my young career, hitting the delete button on the app store.
I grabbed another consulting gig, said F it, and headed overseas. The draw to be a digital nomad can be strong after a big crash. Glad I did it, but not for me long term, I work best with a reliable home base.
During that time I built out a super small niche that still gets a little traffic to make enough money to fill the boat up with gas a couple times per year. No reason to kill it even though I no longer am working on it, it just keeps printing. One of the beautiful things about wifi money even if something doesn't hit it can produce small amounts of revenue.
I got an opportunity from a past associate and his medical doctor business partner. They were looking at building tools to improve patient engagement with his practice and then scale to others. I was in.
3rd person on the team and a large chunk of equity along with a meager W2. We quickly pivoted to supporting a contract from skilled nursing and a hospital system. I built out a team of developers to create the tools we needed and WFH nurses to support the patients.
Our platform pulled in data from popular FDA approved medical devices including wearables and took input from the patients and nurse phone calls to generate risk assessments on the patients. We can keep grandma from going back to the hospital through high presence monitoring and active nurses.
This company has been my major focus for the last several years. Unfortunately, we have hit roadblocks in many ways trying to scale the business.
If you are doing anything in healthcare make sure you fall under an easy bucket that can be billed via medicare or insurance claims. We ultimately get contracted by the providers so it has been a slog. The first contract was closed and deployed in 6 weeks, the next took 18 months for a small pilot, we had no clue how bumpy the road was going to be.
We have serviced skilled nursing, home health agencies, hospital systems, and rehab care facilities, however have struggled to replicate a single offering across multiple companies within the same vertical.
While building the healthcare company platform and support team I was living at the coast and fishing regularly. I became friends with an individual that owned a processing company and a tuna boat.
He allowed me to build a brand selling canned tuna. We created a premium canned fish offering with high end salt and olive oil and had limited success selling to boutique food coops servicing high end clients and some direct to consumer. Unfortunately, out of my control a divorce and forced sale of assets left me with a brand that had minimal opportunities to continue to produce a product at a profitable rate to make it worth operating going forward. So we shut it down.
This is where I found myself when I stumbled upon BTB and the rest of the jungle.
As of now I have essentially removed myself from any day to day activities with the healthcare company and have just an advisory role.
I am pursuing my own WIFI money from a couple different paths. I still have some small consulting roles from clients that I have supported for years with specific tasks.
Aside from my failed mobile company and canned fish plays, the majority of my work experience has been providing professional services or building tools & services sold B2B.
I decided I wanted to learn e-commerce and would start an Amazon business so I could learn the ins and outs of Amazon with a long term goal of having my own private label products on Amazon.
It’s a great place to get your feet wet with ECOM. It’s an absolutely mammoth size platform with customers looking for everything under the sun. Setting up an Amazon account is very simple and you can start reselling products very fast.
I’ve been building a business on Amazon since mid 2021 selling anything that the tools say will sell well. I learned by just starting to scan products and list them, but if you need help and want to try selling on Amazon BowTiedMahi has a great course covering how to do it.
I currently generate a couple thousand in profit each month from my Amazon business. It is not passive income by any means, but once items are in the fulfillment center Amazon takes care of the rest and you will get sales when you sleep. As an example this morning I woke up and realized someone had purchased 11 of a single SKU. This is why I love selling on Amazon.
Here’s a basic breakdown on the money details for this product. I can currently order the product for 3.99 per unit with free shipping. My labor is minimal for this SKU. I print the label, place it on the product and slide it into a polybag and include details in the next shipment to amazon. I will make approximately $3.90 in “profit” per unit. Of course there are other expenses for running an amazon business but this is the basic numbers after Amazon fees.
I have a passion project focused on ducks and fruit trees that I write 4 - 6 articles on per month and it is generating some organic traffic. I had plans of creating a line of products for this niche, and may do so down the line if the traffic warrants it. I earn some meager Affiliate fees and Amazon Associate fees from this site. Once I started to focus on writing for small keywords my traffic grew reliably.
When starting out it is easy to want to write articles for keywords that get thousands of clicks per month, but if you can find ones that are getting 20 - 50 per month your chances to get in the SERPS goes up dramatically. As an example, “raising ducks” is going to be much more difficult to rank for as a new site versus, “raising peking ducks as meat birds.”
Where my ecom / wifi journey will go from here. I’m not sure. I’ve still kept one foot in the door with the healthcare company along with several of the other small ventures I have equity in that are still viable companies. I enjoy selling on Amazon, but am pretty sure any private label product I decide to do and sell via Amazon I would vet via Shopify first and only bring over to Amazon once well tested and brand getting established on my own domain.
I will be using my Twitter account BowTiedHalibut to continue to talk about fishing and incorporating more seafood into your diet. I have a few plans on the fish consumption side whether I do another deal with a processor to bring fish to market again or create a related product time will tell. I am currently building something to test with ads and see where it goes.
Things I would have done differently if I knew better. Wish I had the BTB roadmap of staying in your W2 until you secured 2x your income. I jumped ship from regular work and into consulting so long ago now that it would be very difficult to go back to a normal job. For better or for worse, I have had multiple things going on at any given moment instead of a singular focus. Reducing how many things I am working is something I am trying to get better at.
I’ve not earned enough to disappear, but I continue to be able to fish during the week which is what has driven me this whole time. Nothing better for a fish junkie than to be able to take your mom and your 4 year old out on the boat for a cruise on Wednesday.
Thank you BowTiedHalibut for sharing your experience with us today!! 👏👏
And friends, don't let the tides of opportunity pass you by.
Remember, your destiny lies within your grasp! 💫
Love to see this Halibut. Thanks for the inspiration!