This has definitely been a crap month, on the path to financial independence. Huge setbacks. However, it's important to remember that, for long-term gains, this is but a momentary blip. In fact, if I had some free capital, I would be investing it right now, for when the stock market invariably goes back up like it does at the end of every recession. (Graham Stephan has done an excellent video on this; check him out on Youtube if you have not already)
As of writing this, over the last couple days we've seen a bit of a rally; the phrase 'dead cat bounce' comes to mind. I expect it to fall right back down again in the short term.
To make matters worse, I don't expect this to end anytime soon--I fully expect this to extend into the warmer months. RIP summer plans.
Aside from that, my Youtube channel (Mike in the Woods) continues to stay in a rut; averaging about 138 views per day/two subscribers per day for the last two weeks. My growth has been flat for the past little bit.
Here's a 365 day graph of my daily views. (Spikes are on days I release videos and promote my links to it)
It dipped down from a November high, and sort of levelled out. Here's an outlook from the past 90 days:
As you can see, there is still a very slight gradual decline. Unfortunate. However, given my niche (combining fun, futuristic technology with traditional outdoors experiences), I'm hoping this flattened growth pattern is a result of the time of year (early spring, still in the winter mindset) and waning interest in travel due to COVID-19. Nothing to do here but continue to grind on; as of writing this I am at 617 subscribers--still a long trek to 1,000 and subsequently, ad monetization.
Not gonna lie, this continual gradual slide despite improvements in content quality has been rather demotivating. Need to make sure I don't burn out, so I've slowed down a bit on the Youtube front a tad.
On the crypto front, it nosedived right alongside stocks, for some reason. I've been continuing to algo trade with them; making minor gains this month (although the actual fiat dollar value is still down).
I've gotten one new Binance referral this month; and actually earned my first 0.00000015 BTC from referrals there! It's a bit odd-I have fifteen referrals, but none had apparently paid any trading fees up until this point.
I updated my Twitter posting bot reply count; replying to tweets with my binance referral link up to 60 times an hour now. This is how I accumulated the fifteen referrals I currently have.
However, I recently expanded my usage of my referral link; I now feature it in all of my Youtube video descriptions as a way to help out the channel.
I plotted out the beginnings of two new income projects this month. The first one is MyMiniFactory, where I will start selling all of the various 3D Models I've made for 3d printing over the past couple years. At least, once they sort out stuff on their end--I paid $37 for the store fee, but it won't let me sell anything yet, and support doesn't know why. Not very amused...
The second new project, is related to selling stock footage. Over the past two years of building up my Youtube channel, I've accumulated quite a lot of footage--although, it's been mostly with my aging GoPro Hero Session 4, which doesn't have the greatest of video quality. (I now have a Canon Rebel SL2, so video quality will be much improved going forward).
In order to pursue this, I need to assemble a 2-3 minute demo reel for Blackbox; which is a site that then pushes your stock footage to most of the major stock footage sites.
I'll update you as these two new promising projects progress.
Across my various other projects, nothing major to report. I put a bit more effort into Shapeways, by uploading a few new models there for sale.
Here's a breakdown of all my income for this month, so far:
As you can see, it has not been a stellar month! I had a few 3D Print sales on Ebay; my biggest performer has been flipping which slid even more downward from February's totals. Unfortunate, when you consider that, for every listing I sell, I put up two more. All my crypto values tanked, though not as bad as it could have been due to some gains in actual BTC value thanks to algo trading. Mining took a hit, but all my rigs still continue to chug away.
I've outright stopped using Poloniex--I condensed the number of exchanges I use to just Coinsquare, Bittrex, and Binance. Poloniex will be removed as an 'income source' line item starting next month.
In terms of my investments and saving towards that lofty $2m goal, I had an overall downward slide of 11% this month--cushioned a bit by algo trading on the crypto front and an influx of funds from the always-on mining farm.
Thankfully, I'm still well above my projected 6.5% month-over-month needed growth rate to hit $2m in ten years. I'm over by twice as much in fact. I have a feeling the rest of this year is going to be a slog.
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Going forward, for the month of April, I'll have x main focuses:
1. Continue to grow my Youtube channel. Six months ago I had projected that I would hit 1,000 subscribers in April; I am well behind on that projection. I'm going to continue working at a sustainable pace of 3-4 videos in April.
2. Pursue the two new projects I mentioned: Once sorted out, I want to upload at least 25-30 models to MyMiniFactory by the end of April; and in regards to my stock footage project, I want to roll out my demo reel and get that submitted for approval. If that happens sooner rather than later, I'll pursue getting some stock footage uploaded & monetized; but at least getting the demo reel done & uploaded is the name of the game for April.
3. Continue to grow my Flipping endeavor as it seems to be a consistent earner, even in today's trying times.
I'll also dedicate some time to my other projects as needed, where appliccable.
If you find these posts helpful, and you are interested in cryptocurrency, try signing up for Binance! It's a widely-known cyrptocurrency exchange (think stock exchange, but for crypto). It's free to do so, and by using my referral link we'll both earn 10% of any trading fees you pay.
https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=WZKZ16ZW
See you next post!
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