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Passive income is the unquestionably the best way to have cash rolling in. Everyone wants to be in a position where they have money coming in with little effort-to-no effort from themselves at all. Thanks to the online platforms that exist now, anyone with the skills, determination and focus can create a passive income stream that will sustain them way into the future.

I’m going to go through methods that, once up-and-running, barely require any work from your standpoint. I’m not talking about methods where you make money after you’ve done the work (like with Amazon FBA selling); I’m talking about ones where you do all of the work beforehand and sit back and watch as cash rolls in for months and years later. There may be a couple of tweaks to keep up with the times, but you’re not going to have to be hands on like in the first year.

I’ve settled on a 12-month period, because some of these may require a couple of months of learning before a long stretch of focused work to get it up-and-running before it’s good to present to the world. Some may not take quite that long to get going and some may need a little longer to be in a place where they’re able to generate big sums of regular income, but I reckon most competent bedroom entrepreneurs could bring these ideas to life in a year.

 

1. Affiliate Website

This works by creating a website based around a specific niche (eg weight loss solutions), and driving targeted traffic to them, in the hope they will perform and action that results in a commission. Provided you have a targeted niche (eg weight loss solution for British post-partum women) and you have created a mass of content superior to any competitors in this field, your content should rank well on Google. Those rankings should translate into commissions for referrals to those training programmes, products and related services.

Affiliate websites can be achieved in a number of ways – many of which would require you to be hands on for a lot longer than 12 months – but it’s very possible to make a hub website that is so well put together and effective at selling that you earn affiliate revenue for years after you initially put it together.

Once you’ve created one affiliate or lead generation site, you will not stop. However, just one can make you thousands per month.

Launch budget: £40-£150

Post-12-Month Effort Required: 2-5 hours a month

Income Potential: £x,xxx/month

Get Started: Check out my resources list for webmasters

2. Create an Information Product

In the past, I might have said an ebook could have made you vast sums over time, but I think it’s more beneficial to channel your energy into creating a full course. Either way, you’re going to need to do a hell of a lot of marketing for a good year to build yourself up as a trusted figure in whatever field you want to explore. From there, it’s your job to make sure those people convert to that paid-for content.

There are so many different platforms to host courses these days. Whether it’s text-exclusive, or you’ve opted to film it, they cater for a variety of educational content types. Alternatively, you could create a subscription-based paywalled website, offering access to rich resources on a rolling monthly basis.

Maintenance for information products would be the act of keeping on top of that subject you’ve focused the course around, and updating as and when is required. Obviously, you have to be thinking long-term from the start, but there are always bound to be things you can do to keep the content current.

It will be an intensive 12 months, and it will require an awful lot of dedication to stay on-track, but the end result will be worth it. The amount of budget you commit to this depends on how much time you can commit to it yourself. I feel as though you’ll get a lot more done if you get help to get you launch-ready.

Launch budget: £0-£5,000

Post-12-Month Effort Required: 2-5 hours a month

Income Potential: £xx,xxx/month

 

3. Peer-to-Peer Lending

For those that want to get their money working for them with as little input as possible, one of the easiest ways is to invest in P2P lending agreement. It’s an alternative to sticking your money in an ISA. While your money is a little less secure, those concerns can be brushed off by the high returns these tend to offer. You’re looking at between a 4% and 10% return on your cash, just for lending it out for a while.

Why would you need 12 months to get started with this? Of course you can get started today, but this is generally going to require you to invest a lot more money than all of the rest on this list. You’re going to need to do a lot of reading into the most suitable for you (eg you might want to go for unsecured loans with RateSetter, or property with LendInvest). You also may want to spend a good amount of time building up funds to invest in the first place.

There are so many investment options for people with even the slightest bit of disposable income. Of all the things listed here, there is so much less required of you and there’s less of a chance that you’re going to get an unexpectedly higher return than expected. For people that are perhaps less creative or don’t have the time for more hands-on things, this is very applicable.

Launch budget: £10-£xx,xxx

Post-12-Month Effort Required: 2-5 hours a month

Income Potential: £xx,xxx/month

 

4. Set Up a YouTube Channel

Content creators are making money on all kinds of platforms but I would argue that the best opportunities right now are on YouTube. All it takes is for the right title with an attention-grabbing thumbnail and you can find yourself with an incredibly popular video that kickstarts a boatload more revenue-driving pieces of content. Tap into a niche and exploit it for all its worth. The vlog style is the long game and not best suited for this idea. Instead, opt for content with real shelf life which will be appealing to broad numbers of people, and perhaps hasn’t been explored yet/as well as you’re capable.

YouTube have been known to move the goalposts in terms of what content can be monetised and at what stage you’re even eligible to run adverts on your channel. If you’re considering this option, your best bet is to start as soon as possible.

Depending on the equipment you have available to you, you can get going budget-free, or spend a little cash on video editing software, a microphone, lighting, additional help and whatever else you need to get up and running. Once your content is live, it can be found by people for years to come. It will be recommended alongside other content and continue to get that treatment once it has a lot of views and engagement. The more videos you have, the better, but you can really make a killing from a year’s worth of work alone.

To top up on the main advertising revenue, bear in mind that there’s probably always an affiliate link you can slip in the description to earn some extra from these web assets. Any maintenance after the videos are live will most likely be spent tweaking the description and the type of ads that display to maximise the income.

Launch budget: £0-£1,000

Post-12-Month Effort Required: 2-5 hours a month

Income Potential: £x,xxx/month

 

5. Print-on-Demand Products

Print-on-demand is without a doubt a numbers game. When you’re selling graphic t-shirts, mugs or cards, you need a lot of ideas. The people that perform best at this are brainstorming machines, and have processes in-place to make new designs are constantly being made. You need to keep on top of trends, tastes and your own sales to really make it in this game. But once you’ve created a mass of designs, you better believe that the catalogue will sustain you for some time to come.

Puns, classic pop culture and out-and-out fly designs are always going to sell. There’s no getting around it. Provided you think of lots of graphics that have staying power, you’re going to steadily build up a lot of products that are just sitting there waiting to sell. If you know your way around Illustrator or something similar, you’re going to do well here. With all of the unlimited design services out there now, it doesn’t matter if you can’t; you can just as easily make your way in this game.

For the most hands-off print-on-demand experience, you’re best opting for Merch by Amazon, but there are so many other platforms that literally take care of every single piece of the printing and fulfilment process. Figure out what you want to specialise in and build from there.

Once you’re in the print-on-demand game, you won’t stop coming up with design ideas. The difficult part is trying to stay away from the game. The main maintenance required for this is to keep on track of your product rankings, and making sure that non-selling designs are replaced with new ones (that hopefully do sell).

Launch budget: £0-£4,000

Post-12-Month Effort Required: 2-5 hours a month

Income Potential: £x,xxx/month

Get Started: Check out my print-on-demand resources

Chiino
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