My Failure to Make Residual or Passive Income

Throughout my college career I thought I could get ahead by creating ways to make money or create residual or passive income. I have tried an unimaginable amount of times but unfortunately have failed. I feel the need to list out most of the things I have tried and how they have failed, perhaps I will find news ways in the future to invert past desires into success. Here is a list of my ideas, they are not in any particular order.

My first attempt was looking for employment online. I thought it was possible to find employment doing Microsoft power point presentations or filling in data base charts for companies. Unfortunately, I have not found any of the related jobs, so I looked for different opportunities. Although wen development was popular, I had little to no experience of coding a website at the time, instead I turned to Craigslist for opportunities. I was surprised when I found my first opportunity; however, after a day of employment, I found myself looking for others to commit to the same task I was doing. The next day I discovered about how pyramid schemes operate and how I had fallen into one. This ended my efforts to seek employment online.

My second attempt was creating a board game, I have done everything within my power to contact businesses and private individuals in seek of information, publishing, and how to het where I want. I have tried more than one hundred times over the period of four years until I finally decided to give up. Occasionally, I still do a little bit of research to see if another opportunity is available, it’s my stubbornness that refuses me to give up on what I would consider a crazy and fun cat and mouse game that is extremely unique and unlike any other board game.

My third attempt to make residual or passive income was publishing two journal I had. I thought they were interesting and filled with many interesting quotes and ideas. I set the price as low as possible so that it would make up for any inquiries regarding its usefulness. Nevertheless, such publication never sold a single copy and although eager to get it off the market, I no longer have an account with the self-publishing company.

My fourth attempt was making a web game of the board game I created. I pitched the idea to a company and could not find a way to seek $60.000 in funding. I had the idea to go to the bank for a business loan, but once acquiring information regarding a certain amount of credit, I ceased to continue to avoid unnecessary embarrassment.

My fifth attempt was to make games. I began on two game projects, but found myself helpless when trying to understand why my code would refuse to work. I went for college to help. After a long waiting period I only found one person who wanted to help, but he desired to get paid because he had a family to take care of. Therefore, I did not continue with this approach. Although it has been a passion of mine to make my own game company, such game ideas will have to wait. Until then the tower of very passionate game design documents filled with concepts, stories, and ideas will have to wait.

My sixth attempt led me to selling 3D models online. I poured my heart out making my 3D models with the idea to build up a library which would pay me back in residual or passive income. I sold my 3D models on Turbo Squid and Unity3D’s asset store and low prices. I thought the furniture and table pack with 24 pieces I put on the assets store would be a success, however both packages were denied by the asset store revisers for being to normal, standard, or simple. Nevertheless, the models I sold on Turbo Squid made enough money to cover one tank of gas.

My seventh attempt was going to online game developers in gaming communities to help make assets for their games so that I could get some sort of recognition. I found one company that was developing a game called Hunted, the demon’s forge. In its first stages, I worked on some of the environmental assets like the tree trunks and foliage. I didn’t get paid and I could work leisurely. However, after they left the community and became a bigger brand game, I left development to focus on story writing for games in college.

My eight attempt was to make YouTube videos. I thought it would be an amazing idea if I could get payed by Youtube. I wanted to make a video blog series about my life, short animations, and even web comics. I choose to make web comics and animations because I had no video camera or decent web cam. I decided to start by making 3D animations. I spent a long time modeling and came up with very decent models; however, I hit a brick wall in the project after I came across 3dsmax’s weight maps, which was a critical part of the rigging process. The model I was working on was too complex and it made weight mapping near impossible with the tool sets offered by the software. The other problem was the time it was taking me to create a single model. My next idea was to create web comics or even regular comics. This was also a problem because of how much time it took. I had to work around college and it was time I simply didn’t have.

My ninth attempt was to engage in the stock market. I read four books, did a lot of research, and watched many YouTube videos. This is when I learned how difficult it was to obtain Warren Buffet’s investment strategy and how the best way to invest was your own way with setting goals limits in mind. Determined, I researched investment firms and opened an account with TDAmeritrade. Nevertheless, upon my research, I also came across the dividend reinvesting program, DRIP. This is a reinvestment plan that accumulates over a very long period of time through dividends. After I was certain this was the method I desired to invest with, I purchased DRIP stocks in a high yielding dividend corporation. I have calculated it would take me 20 years with the capital I put in to reach a million dollars. However, until then I still have to survive.

My tenth attempt was freelancing. I looked for graphic design jobs online and came created accounts with freelance websites. I was surprised to find how much competition there was. I also found many freelancers were small companies utilizing these online sources to gather all the opportunities which blew the smaller guys like me out of the water. Occasionally, I go on Craigslist and find opportunities. Although very risky because of their demands, I still fall prey to larger companies. I have a friend that helps me search for opportunities to be employed by graphic design firms, however their hours can be insane, locations very far, and pay very unattractive. More than often, their full time working hours conflict with my college hours. Nevertheless, I have concluded that if I needed a job, the first place I would look is in the graphic design field.

My eleventh and final attempt is blogging and advertisement. At first I tried blogging about things I learned in college. I put together two complete class notes of everything I’ve acuminated. My first blog was about design communication, how to communicate affectively through art. My second was about programming logic and using example pseudo-code. I researched and utilized online advertisement but over time I realized it was not generating any income what-so-ever, therefore I discarded the idea and moved on. Nevertheless, I made a new blog to substitute my video blog idea for Youtube, which is the blog you are currently reading. Although it is linked with Adsense, it still has yet to generate any returns.

My current attempt, as my desire grows tired to generate a residual or passive income stream, is selling short stories or maybe even an entire novel. I even thought about documenting the novel by making it into a video series. I am also doing freelancing on the side until I complete college. I also came up with the suggestion to take on a roommate for easy passive income. In conclusion, I have come up with the suggestion that a job is probably the only means to get income unless one already has capital to do something. However, just like the life of a pioneer entrepreneur I will continue my quest to get both a job and a residual or passive income stream.