Micro job platforms • Collecting cans for cash • $1.5k-$100k MRR in 12 months • $100k/year walking dogs • $250k niche site sale • Money avoidance • and more!
Swift Saturday Financial Newsletter

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Hey, Dylan here. Hope you've had a good week so far!

"People often think it's weird to get hyped about reading one page or meditating for one minute or making one sales call. But the point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can't learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize." - Atomic Habits

This can be applied to any area of your life, whether it’s your business, personal finance, health, or similar.

Today:

  • Micro job platforms
  • Collecting cans for cash
  • $1.5k-$100k MRR in 12 months
  • $100k/year walking dogs
  • $250k niche site sale
  • Money avoidance
  • and more!

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MAKE MONEY

Extra Income 💵

Micro job platforms

Micro job platforms offer some of the easiest and lowest barrier-to-entry earning opportunities ever. Most of them just require you to create an account, and then you're off to the races.

Sure, these platforms don't always offer insanely high pay or the most consistent work, but they can still be good options for extra income

They can also help you get your feet wet with a new business idea: some TaskRabbit users doing waste cleanup, house cleaning, or handyman tasks make thousands per month. If you wanted to try doing the same, you could get started quite easily and then transition into marketing on your own in the future. 

All in all, they're not perfect, but micro job platforms definitely provide a unique opportunity. Learn more about them here.

Collecting cans for cash

I used to do this as a kid collecting bottles and cans during family picnics and such, but some people do it for a living. This is a great story of a family who does just that. 

There's also a great comment on the article sharing another story:

Curt Degerman, known to many as "Tin Can Curt," spent nearly 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern Sweden collecting tin cans and bottles for cash. Those who passed him by simply assumed he was another ordinary street bum.

But to the surpise of many, when Degerman died in 2008, he left more than $1.4 million to his cousin. In between collecting cans, Degerman spent a lot of time in his local library reading business papers and studying the stock market.

"He knew stocks inside and out," said his cousin.

By immersing himself in an education of thrift and smart investing, Degerman used his tin-can earnings to purchase mutual funds. He bought 124 gold bars and also expanded his cash with a savings account. By riding a bicycle and not having a mortgage on his house, his savings were made even easier.

Pretty inspiring stuff, and proof that you don't need to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to accumulate significant wealth. The way you utilize your earnings is what matters most. 

Business Ideas and Stories 💼

Growing an email marketing software from $1.5k-$100K MRR in 12 months

Even if you don't currently have a business generating $1.5k MRR, this story of how Nathan Barry grew ConvertKit in its early days will still provide some useful insight.

It shows the power of smart marketing and direct sales. 

Here's a quick summary of some of the things Nathan did:

  1. He really niched down. He started with “email marketing for professional bloggers” which was already pretty niche. Then, he narrowed things down even further, with things like "email marketing for professional paleo recipe bloggers who are women". This not only allowed him to easily find target customers through places like Google and Twitter, but it also allowed him to craft his sales copy around that very specific customer.
  2. He asked his customers to share their frustrations. Instead of sending a cold-email asking them to try his service, he asked them what they didn't like about their current service. This lead to conversations about how he was working on solving those issues. 
  3. He made it easy to use his service. The hardest part about switching to a new email service provider is just that -- switching everything over from the old system. So, Nathan and his team offered to handle it for free. 

This combo of niching down and really providing great service caused the word to spread, and soon the referrals starting coming in. Combine that with an affiliate program to incentivize even more referrals, and that's how ConvertKit grew from $1.5k to $100k MRR in 12 months.

Nowadays, ConverKit makes millions in revenue each year.

A great lesson of strategy and hustle. 

Making $100k+/year walking dogs

For anyone who thinks dog walking is just a mere side hustle, think again. It's a full-blown business for some.

Here's the story of Ryan Stewart, a NYC dog walker who pulls in over $100k per year with around 25 hours a week worth of work. He does this by walking up to 6 dogs at a time.

If you want a low-risk way of trying out dog walking for yourself, consider signing up for Rover or Wag

Spencer Haws sells his public case study niche site for $250k

The site is in the outdoor/backyard niche, and it's called Own The Yard

You can follow through each of his updates from the very beginning to see how he built the site up starting in July of 2018. Very impressive stuff. 

Tips and Tricks 💡

Warren Buffet's #1 tip to increasing your worth by 50%

The tip? Improving your written and verbal communication skills.

If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark — nothing happens. - Warren Buffet

MANAGE MONEY

Tips and Tricks 💡

Money avoidance and how to manage it

Money avoidance is the simple act of knowing you should be looking at your financial situation and working on improving it, but instead, you procrastinate. I used to have this problem (I'd be afraid to look at my credit card bill), and it can cause a lot of stress.

Here are two tips that might help:

  1. Recognize the feeling. Once you notice yourself feeling antsy about checking your bank account or credit card bill or similar, that's good. Instead of avoiding those feelings, recognize them and ask yourself why you feel that way. Write these reasons down.
  2. Do a monthly money meeting. Review your notes from above, check your bank accounts, pay your bills, and review your goals. If you have a significant other, get them involved to. This forces you to be open and transparent with your finances at least once a month, and though it may be hard, it'll help you build better habits. 

Reader Wins 🏆

What were your personal finance wins this week (or this year)?

A new idea! Hit reply and share your personal finance wins with me. If I get enough, I'll share them in an upcoming newsletter (anonymously of course).

MULTIPLY MONEY

Market Recaps 

📈 Stocks 

Source: Google Finance

The stock market was a bloodbath this week, with all of the 11 official sectors in the red. 

Some of the biggest losers were Consumer Cyclicals (with stocks like Ford -17%, Peloton -15%, DraftKings -19%), Technology (with stocks like Shopify -17%, Uber -16%, Coinbase -15%) and Communication Services (with stocks like Netflix -23%, Snapchat -16%, Roblox -14%). 

Related:

  • Canadian CPI increased 4.8% YoY in December. "All the eight major components the agency uses to group the hundreds of goods and services it includes in its price basket posted gains last month" (Financial Post)
  • U.S. wholesale prices increased 0.2% in December, below estimates of 0.4%. That could be a good sign for inflation, however, when zoomed out, 2021 saw the biggest increase in wholesale prices since 2010, posting overall gains of 9.7% for the year. (CNBC)
  • U.S. jobless claims jumped to 286,000 in January, well above estimates and the highest since October. The increase could potentially be due to omicron. (CNBC)
  • U.S. retail sales fell 1.9% in December. Another potential affect of omicron. (Market Watch)

🔮 Crypto

Sources: Google Finance and CoinMarketCap. Price data as of 6:40PM PST

Crypto has been having a rough year. Almost every single top 100 coin was in the red this week, Bitcoin has dropped below $40k, and Ethereum is down about 45% from its November high.

Related:

  • Walmart files trademark for NFTs and a digital currency. (CNBC)
  • Mastercard has partnered with Coinbase for NFT payments. (CNBC)
  • 30% of bitcoin in circulation is worth less than what holders paid for it. That number may have increased even more now due to the recent dip. (Insider)
  • Intel is set to release an energy efficient BTC miner. (PC Gamer)
  • CashApp has introduced the lightning network for free BTC payments in the U.S. (TechCrunch)
  • Twitter introduced verified NFT profile photos for Twitter Blue users. However, they're not perfect. They can still be faked by “right click savers”.
  • The Fed released its study of a digital dollar but didn’t decide on whether or not it will be creating one. They’re asking for public feedback on the idea, benefits, and downsides. (CNBC)

Hope you enjoyed this week's letter!

Which part was your favorite? What do you want to see more or less of? Hit reply and let me know!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

- Dylan

PS: Past letters if you missed 'em: #76#75, #74, #73#72.

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