Curious; how do most here earn their livings?

Run their own sites? Consult/project work? What?

[stlouislouis]

Hi,

I recently found this wonderful place and am very impressed by the large number of very knowledgeable and talented folks here. I'm learning a lot from reading the threads here. Thank you all for sharing.

I'm very new to web development, but have been a mainframe programmer/analyst for 13 years. I'm considering changing how I earn my living; wondering how realistic it is to earn one's living while working from home running one's own websites.

Do most of the folks here earn their living running their own websites? Working for others as employees? Contracting or consulting their SEO and webmastering skills to help *others* earn money from their websites? Doing general web development for clients? Where exactly does the revenue come from?

Do most here who earn their livings running their own websites primarily run one or a few sites, or many small ones (size as in revenue per site)?

Also, what types of sites exactly do most of you run?

Overall, for those earning their livings from operating their own sites, how does it compare to working for someone else time and money wise?

I'm quite curious exactly what you all do; so many of you are obviously quite talented, experienced and accomplished.

Thank you very much for sharing with a newbie.

Take care and continued best wishes,

Louis

[edited by: Marcia at 10:29 pm (utc) on June 27, 2002]

[richlowe]

By day I am the Director Technical Services and Computer operations for a multi-billion dollar company. I manage the crew that administers about 110 servers (windows 2000), 25 SQL databases, 25 web servers (IIS), a working hot disaster site mirroring that entire lot, several hundred workstations, about a hundred laptops, plus 6 Alpha mainframes.

By night I work on my own personal web sites. I have a couple of dozen of them. These are informational sites which try to help people (they make no money and do no advertising). These range from internet related to health related to the renaissance faire.

My wife has been very ill. Because of her illness she cannot go out, so she has bene learning to become a little webmistress herself. She now has a dozen websites, again all informational.

I have over 25 years of experience in the computer field. I began as an operating systems "guru" on the PDP-11 RSTS/E operating system, moved to OpenVMS and Macintosh, then finally moved to Windows, Linux and Unix. I've been a Vice President of consulting at two different companies. I've analyzed, designed and programmed just about everything from operating systems code (disk drivers, network drivers and so on), accounting systems (AP, AR, GL, Payroll and so forth) and SCADA systems (including Las Vegas Valley Water District's and New Haven Conn Water District's water systems).

Richard Lowe

[mivox]

I'm a 9-5 wage slave webmaster who secretly dreams of becoming an artist and selling my nifty things on my own website... or selling other people's things... or whatever it takes to get myself out of this stuffy little office. :)

Ask anyone around here though... I've complained about it forever, and never get off my behind and do anything about it. At first, I was afraid it just wasn't possible to make a living as an independent webmaster...

...I've since gathered (from the fine folks around here) that it is certainly 100% possible, as long as you find saleable products, and don't mind spending all your time in front of a computer. :) It also helps if you run a dozen or so sites... that way, none of them has to be a smashing sucess, as long as ALL of them make some money.

Now, if only I wasn't so lazy...

[Crazy_Fool]

you mean we're supposed to make money out of this ???

back in 99, i decided to set up my own business doing web work. i was a qualified programmer working full time in a non-computer environment, and earning one hell of a lot of money. the idea was to set up part time while i learnt everything, but i suddenly became a single parent with no money and had no choice but to quit my full time job and work full time on the net.

i had little idea which direction to take when i started out. i've done a lot of learning, made a lot of mistakes. it took me a long time to start making money, but i did it.

i now have 2 businesses doing web design / development, domains, hosting, ecommerce, SEO etc. i'm still building the businesses as and when i get time. i estimate another 6 months before i've updated my sites and the non-web documentation to "as they should be right now", but then i estimated the same about 12 months ago.

my biggest mistakes were not realising just how much hard work was involved in going it alone, and trying to learn everything about everything rather than concentrating on one area of work at a time.

how does this compare to working full time for an employer? damn good! i'll never work for a full time employer again. you simply cannot beat working for yourself and picking and choosing when to work and when not to. it's great getting a phone call saying "want to come out for a beer?" and just being able to go right there and then. the downside is that working from home can get lonely for some people, although that doesn't bother me.

my advice? if you want to get into some area of web development etc, choose one area of work to start with and give it a go. learn as much as you can about that particular area of work as possible. don't give up the day job unless you have the means to survive for a year or so without any real income. if you can find the means to survive, go for it.

[mahlon]

I am a website assistant, I do product copy, images, site merchandising, brainstorming and SEO for a large online e-commerce site. I never took a computer class, just learned from experience. I am now getting into coding a little.:) scary.

[digitalghost]

I work out of my home, full time as an SEO and marketing consultant. I worked as a copywriter before that, and as a ghost writer, hence the screen name.

After twelve years of study and a post-grad degree I decided I didn't like the field I was in. My decision to leave the world of philosophy and metaphysics behind was bolstered by the terrible pay, the elitist attitude common among professors and the desire to wander the country. I wandered the country, and other countries for 3 years. I've worked as a carpenter, a die setter, a machinist, a programmer, bricklayer, painter, stable hand, efficiency analyst and served 4 years in the service jumping out of planes.

I love my current profession. Nothing quite like the rush of edging out competitors with million dollar promotion budgets. As a side note, people that work out of their home typcially spend twice as much time working as people that work outside the home. :) Don't sweat the 9-5 too much. I work quite a few of them, 9 a.m to 5 a.m. that is...

DG

[Eric_Jarvis]

full time employed to run a site...now and again I do part time consultancy or web development work

[stlouislouis]

Many of you are very impressive in your accomplishments!

My hats off to you.

And I feel very fortunate indeed to be able to learn
from reading many of your posts.

Thank you all for sharing,

Louis

[evinrude]

Once upon a time, I was the webmaster at a rural electric cooperative. :) Positioned changed recently and I'm doing less and less web stuff for work. 'course that means I can now do it more and more for fun, right?

I'm now a systems analyst and spend most of my time creating technical documentation for the various in-house apps that we have designed. I do still help out our new web design person on occasion, where my favorite phrase to hear is quickly becoming "Why'd you do it that way?"

[DrCool]

I used to do SEO for others but recently have transitioned to promoting my own sites. I guess you can say I am becoming a crack addict:)

[uk_dokey]

I started out in December 2000 while I was working for the Employment Service. It was my wish to become a full time web master with a classifieds site. Almost 2 years on the sute is doing really well. We seem to be doubling business every month. Just recently I started work on 2 new sites and I hope to make them as successful as the first. During the first year I worked very hard day and night to try and make it a success, now it seems to run off of its own momentum and I sit back and take the ride. I do about 2 hours a day now and earn a fairly good wage. The lifestyle is very nice and I would never go back to working for others, its just so flexible I could even probably run it from other countries. Louis go for it whole heatedly and make it a success, remember that persistence is the key.

[Thors Hammer]

Currently I manage a Stained Glass Studio, and am trying to help the owner of the business with his web presence and e-marketing efforts. (one of these days he will listen *sigh*)

Awhile back, I had my own business doing custom cabling, sat-dish installations and the such. I then started to dabble in html, and creating web pages. Then started doing it for pay, which was great. I had a mixed background in art, and also programing. But had gotten out of programing around the days of pascal, turbo-pascal and the such.... :(

So web stuff really interested me. I learned how to hand code, and use wysiwyg's. I started to dabble in 3d animation, went so far as to invest in a system that would run 3d studio max, lightwave, etc.... But ended up doing nothing with that.

Then I relocated back where I was born, and came back to work with this Stained Glass Studio.

Came across this site, and the rest as they say is history.... LOL

Thor

[WebRookie]

I started off taking classes at the local college learning to code HTML by hand and graphics classes. My teacher recommended me to a temp position with a well-known book publishing company. I interviewed and got the job, something called search engine optimization, which they barely knew anything about. I was given two urls and a newsletter and told to prove myself. It worked, I was hired FT, and kicked some butt doing it. Then the tech crash came around -- after three years of hard work, I was one of the unlucky people laid off from the company in October 2001.

I dove headfirst into contracting and landed an ongoing gig with a search engine marketing company. Been doing contract work for the company since January 2002. I had to learn as I worked projects since contract work is much different than working for a company.

So, next I'm diving headfirst into opening my own search engine marketing company. My husband and I are working out the bugs at the moment. Nothing like working from home, it's great! Frustrating, yes...scary, yes...exciting...YES. Nothing like taking charge of your own destiny. If you are good at it, do it. You'll never know if you don't try.

[Dpeper]

You guys arent still living with your parents? Heh, well im a computer tech for the city and trying to start a web site of my own although im off to college soon which means ill probaly lose alot of my Web design time.... studing the arts and history of beer. i dunno i make like $7 a day off my site not to bad considering i dont have any bills yet.

[mack]

Hi

I am interested in trying to forge a career involving the net. Up until now i have been a sales rep, but I just resigned so the future is wide open.

[ann]

Retired!

Built and run three sites, starting a new one...collectables this time as my house needs cleaning out so I can have more room...LOL

Not getting rich but truly enjoying every hair pulling minute of it! :)

I was disabled several years back so I spent a lot of time home alone...and miserable until I got into this "computer stuff", it has been a source of enjoyment unequaled by any other job I ever had.

I was an income tax consultant and instructor for a VERY well known company for many years and in off seasons would do accounting work or even *shudder* wait tables, whatever was handy.

Oh yes, before I started learning to build websites I did ghost writing for several astrology sites, can't say which ones but since my style is so distictive you will probaly recognize them if you ever run accross one!

Ann

[lawman]

I'm a hitman by day. I'm here at night. Then I sleep a little and start over again.

lawman

[WebRookie]

>>You guys arent still living with your parents?
Hehehe, nope, 46...couple of careers then SEO...;)

Never too old to start.

[hurlimann]

1) Run my own with my IT team of 4.
2) Act as project managers for 4 other sites.

I have ended up at 80% plus of my time consumed by SEO and SEP.

[Truck]

I am in the military and started building web pages as a hobby. I now have one web site that brings in over $700 a month not bad for a hobby.