I've been a self employed internet entrepreneur for almost a year now and in my time running solo I've learned a few things I wish I would have known before going after my internet business full time. The ideal scenario is that you get to choose when to leave, in my situation I didn't have a choice to quit my day job because I was fired.

How I got fired

Long story short I was an inside sales rep and worked with an outbound sales rep. My outbound sales rep wanted me to work more than 60 hours a week instead of the 40 - 50 I was doing, but I wanted to spend as little time on my day job so that I could get home and work on my internet business. I was working in a salaried position and although I was paid on partial commission the added money I could earn from the extra 20 hours a week of work would have been negligible (I am a firm believer in the Pareto Principle - 20% effort gets 80% of the results). Although the decision to quit was made for me I'm going to share some advice based on my experiences after making the switch from employee to self employed which I believe should help you prepare when you decide to make your own transition.

How to quit your day job

These are 3 important questions you should ask yourself before telling your boss to shove it and pursuing your business full time:

1. Are you turning a profit greater than or equal to your day job income?

First thing's first you need to be making a second income. I don't care how many blogs you comment on, blog posts you write, forums you created, websites you own etc. and you shouldn't either. All you should care about is at the end of the day - how much profit is your online business generating? I could go on for ages about how to make money on the internet, but you can look at my other blog posts to get ideas for that and if you're still strapped for ideas, sign up for my newsletter. I'm releasing a free eBook on how to make money with Amazon.com (my primary income source). At the time I was fired I was earning about the same as my day job and on occasion a little more depending on the month which helped make the transition much easier for me. If I was making less than my day job I would have had to both cut back on expenses and find a way to make even more money.

2. How much money have you saved?

If you're working a day job and running an online business you're essentially working two jobs. If you're turning a profit then ideally you should be reinvesting the money into your business and saving it in a separate business bank account. It's important for you to be thinking about this from a long term perspective. Now is not the time to be spending your extra income on a brand new car or some other frivolous expense. Ideally you should try to be doing both saving and reinvesting. In my situation, I was doing almost entirely reinvesting because I wasn't thinking that I would get fired. In my sales position I had already hit my target sales plan for the year almost 3 months early. So I spent several thousand dollars buying domain names, websites and I also spent over $6k to go to Shoemoney's Elite Retreat event. In fact, two weeks after I got back from Elite Retreat I got fired and unfortunately I had to use an entire month's worth of website income to attend that event. Now because I was reinvesting most of my earnings and not saving very much it put me in a very difficult position. I was making too much to qualify for unemployment from the state (which is a good thing of course) but I was making about as much as my old job so I decided to just pursue my business full time even though I only had about $7,000 in my business account (roughly 2 month's worth of bills). After I went full time as a solo web entrepreneur literally everything I did in my business had to work or it meant me going back to get a job because I had so little in savings. Yes, this helped me 'rise to the occasion,' but it also added an incredible amount of pressure. Before you quit your day job I'd recommend you're making at least as much as your day job and have at least 3 - 6 month's worth of savings on hand. This will give you some additional breathing room and provide you with money to invest in your business.

3. Do you really want to work full time for yourself?

This may sound like a silly question, but depending on your current employment situation the transition from employee to self employed can be quite jarring. I worked in an office with about 60 other people most of whom were my age. The people that I worked with were my friends and I had a lot of fun on my job during my breaks and at lunch. The work wasn't particularly bad except for my annoying outside sales rep. I probably could have stayed at the job until I had about $30k saved up from my business before I would have considered quitting. The reason why I wasn't in a rush to quit is because I am very outgoing and enjoy being around people which is partly why I like meeting up with other entrepreneurs in Seattle (i.e. Neil Patel, Matthew Inman, etc.). My point is that unless your current job is very isolated then it's hard to prepare for the isolation you'll feel after you decide to make the leap to full time internet entrepreneur. In fact, this is partly why I'm trying to do my best to keep earning more money each year starting with my goal of $150k this year. If I can accomplish that this year then I'll shoot for $250k next year and eventually I can start up an office, hire a local team and finally have people to talk to during the day!

Closing Thoughts

The day you decide to work for yourself is very exciting, but if you want to improve your chances for success I highly suggest you have at least 3 - 6 months worth of savings on hand and I recommend you're making at least as much as your day job or more. I would also suggest that you take the traditional approach and quit your job as opposed to getting fired from it because it's better to be in control of what happens next rather than having someone else determine the next move for you. As much as I've said how difficult it can be to work by yourself full time, it really can be a lot of fun and if you can find a way to make it happen I recommend you go for it.

Upcoming: I haven't been writing as much this month because I've been working on my free Amazon eBook; however, as always I have more exciting stories to share on the blog so please do stick around. If you want to hang out I'll be at 15th Ave Coffee in Seattle on July 21st at 7:00 PM. Details are posted in this thread on the Warrior Forum.

We've officially hit the halfway point of 2010 and although I've been doing income reports every month I thought it would be worthwhile to do an update on my goals for 2010 and how close I'm tracking to them ($150k goal being one of them).

My Professional Goals for 2010:

1. Earn over $150,000 across my network of websites

This is a goal I'm currently not on target to hit if I replicate the same numbers from the first half of 2010. After the first six months of 2010 I've earned $34,361.11 based on my monthly income reports. So if I replicated the first half of the year I'd end at $68,722.22. Fortunately, I know that the second half of the year will be better than the first because of the power of the holiday shopping season and several other things I've been working on with my business that should at least put me into the six figure range if not help me hit my goal.

The other thing to consider is that I'm not earning a paycheck here. Yes I'm paying myself for living expenses etc. but the $34k I've earned in 2010 so far has been from creating income generating assets. So if I ever decided to sell my entire network of websites yes I'd be technically "out of a job" but unlike the last time I got fired and received a measly 3 weeks of severance in this case I'd probably get about $200k+ for selling everything.

This is the difference between working for someone else and working for yourself. You're either building a business for yourself or building a business for someone else.

Note: When it comes to the accounting practices for my business I actually don't count the money I've made until it deposits into my bank account so I have actually earned more like $50k in 2010 (based on deposits from November / December earnings). For the income reports it's easier to display information based on what the last month has done though.

2. Spend at least $50,000 on quality domain names to be developed

I've spent about $8k on domain names so far this year with the bulk of that amount being in after market high quality domain names. I believe the right domain name can be the difference between moderate success and big success. I still need to earn significantly more this year to spend more on domain names but I am currently looking at buying several names right now in the five figure range for a new niche I'm working on.

3. Work at least 5 hours a day for a minimum of 25 hours per week

I shared this goal because at the time I wrote it I had struggled with playing way too much Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. I love FPS shooters (if you've read my full story than you'll know about how I was a professional Halo player for a while), but for some reason Call of Duty was unusually addicting for me. I have since stopped playing the game but not before racking up close to 10 days worth of playtime. To help solve the issue now I don't play any video game unless it's after 5:00 PM and I have been doing a much better job of avoiding addicting games as well. Every now and then I read this article which quite literally changed my life and outlook on whether I had a hobby or was building a business. If you're addicted to anything that sucks up your time (i.e. TV, video games, etc.) I highly suggest you read it - Do you really want to make money online?

On average I've been working well over 25 hours per week and will continue to do so for the remainder of the year.

4. Hire at least one full time writer

This is the first professional goal I can already call a success. I hired my first full time writer / assistant in mid June and she has worked for about 3 weeks for far. She's doing excellent work and the only regret I have is that I didn't hire someone sooner. It's difficult to build a six figure business without any help and in fact I will probably shoot for having 3 - 4 full time employees by the end of the year.

My Personal Goals for 2010:

1. Buy a house (No longer pursuing)

My wife and I haven't purchased a house yet and this is primarily due to several reasons:

a. I'm the only one working right now
b. I don't think the housing crash is over (see this)
c. There isn't enough history with my business to get a loan

We may buy next year but probably will wait until the Summer. I don't want to buy something just so that I can say I'm a home owner. I think that's stupid. Instead, I'd prefer to wait and buy a house I'd truly love to stay at for 10+ years. The ideal house for me is sized around 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a big basement so I can build out a private movie theater i.e. this guy and I know this ideal house would be a big first time home purchase so I want to make sure I buy when prices hit the bottom.

2. Donate at least $10,000 to charity

Sadly this goal is sort of tied to my goal for $150k this year. It will be difficult for me to pull off donating $10k unless I have $10k to give. (More on this later though)

3. Cook an entirely brand new healthy meal once per month

I've done this once so far; however, I made it 3 times (lol). I need to make some more meals to meet this goal so we'll see if I can still make it happen.

4. Work out at least 2 times per week

Haven't done this, but as all lazy people say - "I really should." I was actually thinking of trying out P90x. I know it sounds ridiculous but I've heard some good things from a couple friends. Anyone try P90x out? Share below.

5. Re-Learn Spanish well enough to carry on a conversation with a native speaker

Haven't started this. I need to set aside time to do this because so far I haven't made any progress at all.

6. Go to Disneyworld with my wife

We ended up going to Hawaii instead and it was awesome! Turns out surfing is pretty easy if you've been snowboarding for over 15 years.

7. Read the Bible at least 30 minutes a day (I love me some Jesus)

This is the most disappointing goal update of the list for me. I haven't been reading my bible as much as I'd like to, but my wife and I did finally find a church we like attending (Mars Hill Church in Ballard). I need to come up with a schedule to fit things into the day that I sometimes forget. So I have a feeling that this (along with working out) is something I should do in the morning before I start the day, so I'm going to try that this week.

Overall Summary

I still believe it is possible for me to meet all of my goals for 2010. I know that I should at least hit 100k for the year and I still can meet my goal of $150k (especially if I end up selling some of my websites as well). I believe it's very important to set specific and measurable goals and to keep track of them regularly so that you can ensure you meet them. If you haven't set any goals for the year I suggest you do so now and take steps towards achieving them.

Upcoming - As I say almost every month I have more exciting stories to share so be sure to stick around, but every time I really do mean it! I'll be releasing my free Amazon eBook later this month based on your feedback and it will only be available to newsletter subscribers and Facebook Fans. You should also follow me on Twitter though.

Jonathan Volk discusses how to make money online and focuses primarily on doing so via affiliate marketing. I've been in contact with him off and on over the past several months and because I make most of my money via affiliate marketing (i.e. Amazon Associates) he did an interview of me. I completed the interview almost a month ago so it was nice to see it finally go up:

Check out the interview here

I enjoyed doing the interview and would love to do more in the future not only because of the benefit of being exposed to a new audience but also because it's a lot of fun as well. I'm sure some of the people here today are coming because of this interview so I wanted to tell you why you should read my blog if you're already reading Jonathan's.

Why readers of JonathanVolk.com should read my blog:

I've been earning money online since 2005. I started doing well in late 2008 and by early 2009 was making about $5k a month profit on average. I got fired from my job in October 2009 and in the next two months made over $20k in profit. I decided to stick with my running my own business full time and I relaunched this blog in early 2010 on a new URL. The blog has grown very rapidly since then because the information I share is based on true experience i.e. Best tips I learned from $40k+ earned with Amazon Associates. I also don't try and sell my readers products all the time which is partly why I don't have any advertising on this blog either (all of my money is earned from other websites and projects).

If you think that sounds good you should subscribe to my blog here

While you're here be sure to check out the popular posts listed in the right hand column of the blog and please let me know what you think of the interview - thanks!

Off Topic Reminder: Memorial Day weekend is upon us! Make sure you list various sales on your websites and blogs to show your readers where the best savings are at! I'll be doing this on my network of sites and I'm sure I'll see an uptick in commissions. I've said it before and I'll say it again - focus your selling on the holiday time periods!

My wife just graduated with her Master's degree in Occupational Therapy and to help celebrate we are heading to Hawaii for a week long vacation. In fact, by the time this post has been published we'll probably be mid flight. I'll be bringing along a laptop to do a few things while I'm gone but I've already prepared blog posts to publish while I'm gone during my regular posting schedule of Monday, Wednesday and Friday here on this blog. I'll be sharing a couple very fun and interesting posts that you won't want to miss out on like how I earned over $2,000 from one blog post - so be sure to stick around.

That's the best part about earning a living on the internet. I've already finished my "work" for the week ahead on this blog and my other websites and when I get back I'll have probably made a couple thousand dollars while I was off surfing, snorkeling, hiking and relaxing on the island of Oahu.

This is the first time for both of us going to Hawaii - is there anything we absolutely must do while we're in Oahu? I'll be checking the comments later tonight so don't be bashful - do share.

Side note: We have an alarm and someone's going to be staying in our house while we're gone so cancel your plans to come and rob me if you know where I live hah hah. Choose from this list of people instead

I've been trying to make money as an entrepreneur for most of my life now ever since my first adventure in junior high school when I began buying Pokemon card packs and reselling them on eBay to people for triple the $3 price I paid (see my about me story). My best sale was for $25 on a pack I bought for $3 at the card game store. I still can't comprehend how that worked but knowing there were so many idiots out in the world struck a chord deep within me - How do I extract as much money from idiots willing to part with their money? And with this guiding principle in hand I set out on more money making journeys. Not everything has worked out as well as I had anticipated and what follows are my top 7 worst websites ever created:

1. Investing in Drugstore.com stock

Like George from Seinfeld I set out to "make a big score," but not by investing my library money in art - instead I reinvested the money I made selling Pokemon card packs in Drugstore.com stock at $43 a share. I lost a couple thousand dollars when the stock fell to a few dollars a share as the rest of the internet stocks crashed. While this isn't quite a website I created in an attempt to make money online it is what helped to lead me down the path to try earning money online by making websites and not investing in them on the stock market.

Lesson 1: Don't invest in the stock market unless you know what you're doing. Extra Credit: If everyone in the country is talking about how you should jump in on a trend right now you know the bubble is about to burst.

More failures and lessons learned are continued after the break...

2. ClassicNES.com

This was the very first website I tried creating back in 2003. It's done entirely in HTML and tables. This is the best version of it so you can see the crap I created. I learned a valuable lesson with this website because not only was it my first attempt to make a website I also bought the hosting for 12 months and got the domain for free. Little did I know that when the hosting company fell apart 9 months later they took my domain name as well.

Lesson 2: Buy domain names through a reputable company apart from your web hosting provider.

3. NESGaming.com

After losing my ClassicNES.com domain name I decided to buy another one and try again with NESgaming.com. I didn't learn my lesson with improving the quality when I first rebuilt the site as evidenced by this old version. Yes if you wait long enough for it to load that's a character from Mike Tyson's punchout saying "When I'm not tanning I'm at NESgaming.com." Soon after this fail I decided that I needed to improve the quality of the website. I moved to vBulletin and paid for a professional skin and the result was this. After about 6 months (maybe more) I realized that this was not going to be the best way to make money online.

Lesson 3: In order to make money online a website needs to look better than a circa 1997 GeoCities web page. Extra Credit: People don't care enough about an old video game system from the 1980's to bother talking about it in a forum.

4. GamingVidz.com

Based on the lessons I learned from my first website creations I decided that I should try a forum in an area that would be ever changing - current generation video games. As I've shared in my about page this was one of the first websites where I got a taste for earning money online, but even at it's height of 500,000 page views a month I was only earning $500 a month at best. I also spent a lot of time every day managing the forum and dealing with trouble makers.

Lesson 4: If I'm not earning enough money from one website, then I should start more websites.

5. WorldofWarcraftBoard.com, XboxLiveArcade.com, HaloBoards.com

Even though I was only earning $500 per month at the peak of popularity for GamingVidz.com I decided what I needed was more video game forums so that I could earn more money on other websites at the same time. So I set out to create more video game forums. The problem I faced now was that managing even more forums in a niche where members are always getting into arguments and causing trouble due to their maturity level. So instead of making more money I just buckled under the work load and the communities slowly suffered.

Lesson 5: More websites is not always the answer, especially if you stay in the same general low paying niche.

6. BestArcade.info

Not content to try earning money off video game forums I decided to branch out and try a video game arcade. I liked the idea of setting up the website once and the only time I'd have to spend on it later would be promotion. The problems I faced were all too familiar - video games are a low paying niche and despite the fact that I didn't have to work on the website daily it still didn't earn enough money to warrant the effort.

Lesson 6: As much as I love video games, it's time to branch outside of my bubble if I want to try and earn a solid income online

7. ChrisGuthrie.net

After spending a lot of time researching how to make money online I came across the internet marketing niche. I figured that although I wasn't making a full time income online I have a lot of experience building websites and trying to earn money from them that I should start a blog about my adventures of earning money online. I spent about a year and a half blogging on this domain name and never earned more than a few hundred dollars per month.

Lesson 7: Just because someone else can make money blogging about how much money they make online doesn't mean I can.

Conclusion:

Most of my early time spent building websites was more about having fun and learning. As this desire for having fun transitioned towards making money I took too long to venture out of the comfort of the over saturated niche I knew so well: video games. It wasn't until a year of blogging on ChrisGuthrie.net later that I started truly branching out into other niches on the web and only after doing that I started earning good money. As the money I earned from these websites grew I started to blog less and less on ChrisGuthrie.net. Then in late 2009 after losing my job and already earning enough money from my websites to support my family, I decided that I wanted to return to the internet marketing niche offering the perspective of a full time internet entrepreneur so that I could share all that I learned. So I bought a new domain name that more accurately described the purpose of my blog and started writing again in early 2010. My goal for this blog is to cut through the misinformation that is spread all over the web on how to make money online and to teach you through examples how I make several thousand dollars per month. I hope you come along for the journey.

I wrote an about me page back in 2007 on my old blog but never went back to update it. After I moved my blog to the new URL I decided updating my about me page was long overdue. So I finally got around to it and have added in more details as to the steps I took to make my way into full time internet entrepreneurship. If you'd like to know more about my story feel free to check it out.

Click here to read my story

Note: I have several intriguing topics coming up that I'll be sharing about in the coming days. First, I'll be posting another income report and I also have enough data to share my results on Vibrant Media's in text advertising solution as well. There are some other exciting things to be shared soon so be sure to subscribe to my blog so that you don't miss out.

Now that I've settled into my new home and have had time to think about going into 2010 as a full time internet entrepreneur I thought it would be best to write some specific and measurable goals for the new year. I've split these up into professional and personal:

Professional:

1. Earn over $150,000 across my network of websites
2. Spend at least $50,000 on quality domain names to be developed
3. Work at least 5 hours a day for a minimum of 25 hours per week
4. Hire at least one full time writer

My first goal of earning $150,000 in 2010 will be tough, but I make $410.97 every day of the year I'll earn more than $150,000. Because I watch my earnings every day I can make sure I keep tabs on where I'm falling short. I also want to spend at least $50,000 on quality domain names. I believe in buying quality domain names and then developing truly great websites for them. I've also found that since Oct 13th when I got fired from my job last year I found it difficult to work more than 4 hours a day at a time, especially since I was making more money than my day job where I spent 8+ hours a day working. I know that if I devote at least 5 hours a day or more to work that should help me to achieve my primary goal of earning $150,000 in 2010. I also know that I will need to create a ton of content for the websites I'm creating so I need to hire on a full time writer to help with content creation. I haven't decided if I want to hire on a native English speaker or if I should just opt for the cheaper $500 a month overseas writer instead... I'll cover this in more detail when I get there though.

Personal goals are continued after the break...

Personal:

1. Buy a house
2. Donate at least $10,000 to charity
3. Cook an entirely brand new healthy meal once per month
4. Work out at least 2 times per week
5. Re-Learn Spanish well enough to carry on a conversation with a native speaker
6. Go to Disneyworld with my wife
7. Read the Bible at least 30 minutes a day (I love me some Jesus)

My wife and I would really like to stop renting and move into a place we can own. I also happen to believe that housing prices have near bottomed in the area we're looking - Washington. I know there may be some difficulty in getting approval for a loan since I am self employed but I'm sure I'll figure something out. If I can reach my primary goal of earning $150,000 in 2010 then I don't see why I can't donate at least $10,000 to charity. I believe that living in America with the opportunities we have available requires us to give back to those less fortunate than ourselves (specifically people in other nations). I also want to try and expand my food horizons by cooking a new unique meal once per month. In the past I've cooked before, but it's always been the same 3 or 4 meals so that's why I wanted to lump this goal in there. Along the same lines of healthy food I also would like to get into better shape. I'm not overweight or anything, but my lifestyle is so inactive that I am terrible shape. I already got a gym membership about a month ago but have still not gone yet (so I need to work on this one ASAP). I also would like to re learn the Spanish language in 2010. I spent 2 years in high school learning Spanish but I have since forgotten most of it. My brother speaks near fluent Spanish so I hope to carry on conversations with him for practice. I'd also really like to go to Disneyworld with my wife this year too. She finishes graduate school in the summer and has a month long break before going to do her six months of unpaid internship work so I would like to fit it in there. We have yet to go on a vacation with just each other in the 3 plus years we've been married so we're long overdue. Lastly, I need to spend more time reading my Bible. I'm a Christian, but often times I don't act like it and I believe that reading my Bible daily would be a great start in the right direction.

Wrap Up:

I've done my best to make them as specific and measurable as possible so that when 2011 rolls around I can easily go through and evaluate them. I also believe all of the goals I've written are feasible and when I look back on the year I can be quite satisfied when I was accomplish them. If you haven't written goals for the year I would suggest you do (even if you don't post them publicly). Just keep in mind the importance of writing goals that can be specifically measured otherwise it will be difficult to determine how well you did in the year.

What do you think of my goals?

Long time readers may remember the post I wrote back in January 2008 where I outlined my goals for the year. Looking back on that post I can only think to myself - too bad I didn't know what I know now. The goals were almost laughable. So when 2009 rolled around I was the first to call out how unbelievably unsuccessful 2008 was from a goal achievement perspective. I gathered my thoughts and wrote out a 2 year goal towards self employment with an end goal income target for the year of $32,000 (the starting salary at the job I used to have)

Goal Success:

Well, of any goal I've ever set out to accomplish this one means the most. Based on my earnings for the past several months I've decided that it's safe to call this goal a success 1 year and 5 months ahead of my original schedule! I am making enough now to officially quit my job errrr, oh yah I was fired so I didn't have to quit after all. In any case, Boo yah!

Game Plan:

I've decided that I will take $3,500 a month as income from my websites during 2010 to pay our fixed bills and it should leave some left over for other random expenses that crop up. My wife is still finishing out her masters program and unpaid internships until December 2010, so I only need to make $42,000 during the entire year to cover our bills. The rest of the money earned will be kept in the business to buy more domains, websites, coding help, etc. So as long as I can continue to earn more than $3,500 a month we should be fine.

Why I didn't share this news earlier:

I've held off on writing this post for over two months now because after I got let go fired from my job October 13th I had begun searching for a new job. I know employers look up potential candidates by searching them online so I marked a few of the posts on my blog private that illustrated how much I hate working for someone else and plan to quit in late 2010 hah hah. But after half looking for a few weeks I decided that the timing of getting fired was for a reason. This was the gentle shove (well maybe a kick) that showed me it's time to do my own thing and I couldn't be more happy about why lies ahead than I am right now.

Why was I fired?

To this day I still have no idea why I was fired. I had already helped to achieve my full year sales target 3 months ahead of schedule and I also had numerous awards. I am near certain that it was because my outbound rep that I partner with on deals wanted me to work more than the regular 40 hours a week my salary requires. But the pay wasn't really all that great in the first place and I was much more focused on building my online empire than putting in extra hours to earn just a little bit more commission.

Looking forward to 2010

I am looking forward to 2010 and a full year of self employment and an opportunity to do even better. In fact, I will be moving this blog to a new domain in the next week or two. You shouldn't have to subscribe to the new feed, but the reason for the change is that I wanted to pick something that was more focused on what I do online and not just my personal name. (More details on this new URL soon)

I have several exciting posts, case studies and more to share in the coming weeks and months so be sure to stick around. It's very good stuff.

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