A lot of us 4HWW’ers are searching for muses that are Passive Income Generators (PIGs) and also require little investment upfront or continued maintenance (to allow them to be true 4 hour a week exercises). Maybe it’s a panacea, since if there was truly something that can return income with little or no time investment, everyone would be doing it, which would then eliminate any of the financial benefit. Economic markets are efficient, right?
Or maybe there are such sorts of businesses, but they can never truly replace income by themselves. Perhaps the key to a good PIG-type muse is to have a collection of small businesses, each of which contribute a modest amount, but togethr contrbute a significant amount.
In that vein, I’m getting a few of my muses together. The first muse is this blog. But a blog isn’t truly a PIG. Indeed, a blog is really an Active Income Generator (AIG) because it requires continuous work on the blogger to allow it to derive value. Well, maybe not entirely… some blogs automatically parrot information available elsewhere. Those blogs then can truly be PIG-type muses. But it’s the one where new and fresh content is the draw that makes blogs AIGs.
Note: I really need better acronyms, since we like PIGs and the AIG acronym sounds too close to an existing, failing business entity. Anyone have any ideas that convey the same meaning but have better acronyms?
An e-Commerce site as a PIG
So, one of those modestly-contributing PIGs I am considering is an ecommerce site selling a specific niche of items. There is some set-up time involved in an ecommerce site, especially around the website development and selection of products. Also, there is the issue of dealing with customer support and shipping / packaging. But I have a feeling that e-Commerce has evolved so that it can be completely turnkey without requiring the user to do anything but generate traffic.
Here’s where I’m stuck. I need help here — has anyone recently put together an e-Commerce site with a minimal of money and time investment and managed to keep operations humming with little continuous money and time investment? If so, I want to hear about it! What tools did you use? What companies are you working with? Send me your advice, and we’ll keep it posted here.
See you around the 4HWW world!
Hi,
I am in the same situation as you as I try to set up an e-comerce website. Finding a good idea for a niche market is no easy feat. I’ll keep looking at your blog for tipa on that side.
As for setting up a website, I have heard good things about Yahoo! Merchant Solutions.
Best.1
I’ve set up an Outsourcing Coaching Course that could be turned into a PIG, passive income generator.
I’ve produced 4 videos and lots of other tools and templates. At the moment I have it set up as being somewhat active in that I provide a weekly question and answer call and I also answer my students questions. It takes 2-3 hours a week in total.
If I wanted to I could outsource this work to my top Project managers or I could offer the course at ar educed price without the q and a call or answering questions.
At the moment I’m enjoying the Q and A calls so it’s no problem.
Gavin Allinson
I set up a site in fairly short order with only a small investment. (I sell a sports training course for elite student athletes) I used a version Microsft’s Frontpage to create the webpages. This is fairly easy wysiwyg. I found plenty of graphics in Microsoft’s free clip art. I did not want to spend much up front for a merchant account/ shopping cart system, so I am using a simple “buy now” button that you can set up for free from paypal or google.
As for getting the word out, I’m using social media and a small budget for PPC.
System is working well so far and is PIG. Spending my time on marketing and product shipments. Will automate the latter as my orders get a better volume.
Please feel free to check out the site.
Good luck
Mike Reinhart
PAC Sports Training
I am a big fan of the 4HWW. My biggest challenge is that I am in a service based business. I do web design, web development and SEO projects. The challenge I am experiencing, and apparently I am not alone, is finding a muse (PIG) that has a solid niche. Web and SEO are crazy competitive and getting to the market, even if niche, is very costly. I guess I am unique in that putting up a nice looking and functional ecommerce website is not difficult for me. Ah….light bulb just went off! Good Luck Everyone! Ryan – Numatek Web Design