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Comment by mockingbirdy | Hacker News Reader

I've read your blog post. A million is a nice nest egg for bootstrapping.

Just a thought: You can generate $15k of monthly passive income directly with $300-350k investment. If the bootstrapped business fails to make money fast, there's always this option with your amount of money.

Developers often miss those obvious ways to make money because these ways aren't technically intricate.

Source: I do affiliate marketing. This are the usual ROIs.

Good luck on your journey!

edit: wrt. the downvotes - that's one of the reasons I don't want to talk about this in public. I agree that it sounds unbelievable, but most people also don't believe in $500k salaries. Many people dismiss those opportunities because they don't believe it's possible.

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"You can generate $15k of monthly passive income directly with $300-350k investment"

$15k/month is $180k/year

$180k/year passive return on $350k/year is over 50%

Can you please share something about how you achieve that level of return? If 50% IRR is 'usual' for affiliate marketing, why isn't competition pulling those returns down?

(genuinely curious, not doubting you!)

Because most people who make those returns don't sell their businesses openly. You need to know the right groups or people and you need to have specific knowledge to assess a web project properly.

edit: To clarify - most people don't sell them because they're literally money makers. Usually they need the money for investments or have unexpected expenses that force them to sell. Some are just tired of their projects, but this is rare.

Thanks. I'm struggling to understand your advice to OP:

"If the bootstrapped business fails to make money fast, there's always this option with your amount of money."

So let's say I'm in OP's shoes and I have the $350k. How do I take advantage of this option that's 'always' available to make $15k/month of passive income?

> Usually they need the money for investments or have unexpected expenses that force them to sell. Some are just tired of their projects, but this is rare.

But when they do sell them, why for so little?

2-3x on EBITDA is a pretty common multiplier for small businesses earning less than $500k/year. Especially if that EBITDA doesn’t include an owner taking a salary.

You can only really achieve 10x+ for companies that proce they’re growing or have reached significant and stable profitability.

You seem like a nice chap, genuine in your comments, so I'm asking an honest question:

Do you have experience yourself getting that specific ROI (ie, 350k USD investment to get 15k USD monthly passive income)?

Or are you extrapolating from a smaller sample that you have direct experience with, or is this all something you've just read about?

Currently I'm at €3k/month with around €10k investment and no time spent (just bought existing projects; I've started July 2018 - planning to invest another €20k in the next 2-3 months to increase it to €4-5k/month - I live in Germany where €3k is the average monthly salary), but very good friends of mine have achieved €15-50k/month (I've seen the proofs and affiliate payments). Those friends are the main reason I've started doing this in the first place. They're a bit more motivated than I am (I have a web agency and affiliate marketing is not something where I can derive a meaning of life from). Another thing: Many of them were rich (500k+) before starting their online businesses, but I personally have around 3 friends who've built businesses with €6-30k/month using their own hands (only time and hard work; e.g. one with a YouTube channel and another one with a lot of niche sites).

The main reason I openly talk about this: Most people won't do something. They're comfortable. So I'm not afraid to share information because 99% will simply ignore it. And for 1% it'll be life-changing.

@mockingbirdy, do you have an email contact ? Would be curious to learn more about your experiences in this area.

I also do a bit of affiliate marketing on the side. It's not much, but my site just crossed $1k/month December. I've worked about 20 hours on it since this year. My total investment on it is about $800, excluding my time.

Great to hear that! DIY is a bit cheaper, but it takes its time. Depends on your hourly rate what makes more sense.

Do you mind leaving your mail address? If those returns are stable and you want to sell (in the future, too), I would like to talk. Many others here probably too.

Absolutely, DIY takes just way longer. But it's a great industry in that once you know the "recipe", you can take $50k worth of investment and have a hit almost 8 out of 10 times.

Not looking to sell right now though. This site is in a field I have more than an amateur interest in. I plan to stick around with it for a while :)

So what's the recipe?

From what I've seen, there are two recipes:

1. Great content + organic backlinks. It's slow and takes skill (especially in content ideation and creation) but the results will be enduring

2. Great content + cheap, paid backlinks. This one is much faster but requires a budget and there is a substantial risk that Google will simply shoot down your rankings

You can't compromise on content though

Would you mind shooting me an email? My address is in my HN profile. Thanks!

Do you have a link where we can learn more about these opportunities?

I really like HN, but talking about this topic hurts my karma, so I'll stop.

The big ones are flippa.com and https://empireflippers.com/ , but the deals there aren't good. But you can learn a bit about affiliate marketing just browsing the projects.

Justin w/ Empire Flippers year. Yeah, typically an affiliate site making $10K/month in profit will sell for around $280K - $320K.

I understand why some others have said those returns sound unbelievable. It's because they aren't completely passive. It requires absolutely zero skill/effort to put money in the stock market, mutual funds, etc. It requires skill and effort to put it into an online business and maintain or grow that business. Most people can't (or won't) do it.

I’d love to hear more about how this works.

Author here. It is intentionally simplistic (complex plans are useless). There are only 4 parameters, and the only uncertain one is the income. It lets me have a modest income target while starting my business, and it assures me that if I meet it my venture will survive.

Oh yeah, the calculator I get. I was asking about the affiliate marketing scheme.

Didn't mean to hijack this thread, so I'm not going into details here. Just wanted to give OP a tip.

edit: @badfrog - If he'd asked, I would have provided links (e.g. to flippa.com and similar). OP didn't seem to be interested so I thought it might seem disrespectful. But I've provided links in another comment.

> Just wanted to give OP a tip.

Without providing any actionable information, that tip sounds more like a brag.

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