(…and how we started while we spent our time living!)
Hi there, I’m Mitch Webber and this is my wife Vicki and our amazing view. We didn’t set out to start an online business to make a fortune. We started earning online to get our lives back. Let me explain…
Several years ago I returned to London from an ‘interesting’ stint in Saudi Arabia and landed my dream job, working for a company installing fibre across Africa. It was great. Travelling to new countries twice a month. (Business class – what a treat!). Meeting new people. Really making things happen. I thought this was the life. But the company grew super-fast. New managers came in. I started flying out on Sundays and back on Saturdays. Bonuses dried up. The excitement dried up. And I hardly saw Vicki at all – never mind friends and relaxation. I started to feel burned out and couldn’t see any sign of things getting any better.
So we decided I would resign, we would leave London – and set up a guest house and a café/restaurant in the Alentejo in Portugal. What an adventure. New language. New skills. New life. The only problem was that we ended up working all the hours god sends. For less money. We were not exploring Portugal as we thought we would, and I was exhausted all the time. This was NOT the retirement I wanted at all!
But we consoled ourselves with the fact that it was our own business and that we were working together. Then Covid. An enforced time to think. So we chatted about an ideal scenario. We asked ourselves “What would be the best way to earn an income and still have time to live?”
We wanted to find a business that ticked all the following boxes:
• The business had to earn us a reasonable income – It must cover our livening expenses, it should be enough to allow savings for retirement, and it should generate money for us to travel
• We wanted time to travel – that is what we love to do
• The work should not be physically demanding (I was 60 years old now, after all)
• We wanted to spend time with friends and more time just simply ‘living’
We discovered that all of our needs were actually revolving around the concept of ‘more time for us’. More time to travel. More time to explore new interests. More time to visit friends. Even just more time to stop and watch the view. It sounds like a magic-potion really, doesn’t it? We wanted money coming in so that we could do what we wanted to do.
BUT, and it’s a big but – we didn’t want to wait until we retired to get that. We didn’t want to be 67 when we finally could draw down on pensions and start to live – because then we would be too old to travel, explore and have the enjoyment we wanted now.
The shift in our thinking…
Then a friend of mine, Colin, suggested that I should take a look at what was happening online. You see, times have changed and the way you can earn an income has changed as well. Then a friend of mine, Colin, suggested that I should take a look at what was happening online. You see, times have changed and the way you can earn an income has changed as well.
If you wanted more income – you worked longer and harder. And I saw that that was what had happened to me. I was working longer – earning more – but actually enjoying life less. But the world has changed in the last 10 years. More and more ordinary people are using the internet to find products they need – and using the internet to buy them.
What are the benefits of working online?
“Working online” means that you get the interweb to do the work, rather than doing it all yourself. This brings you a whole set of advantages that we never considered in the pre-internet days. These are some of the benefits
You set your own hours: In the online world you get to work when you want to work. So if you are an early starter, you can get up in the morning and put in the hours before lunch. Job done. The 9 to 5 becomes a thing of the past. No-one is checking when you came in, when you had lunch or how many days you have taken as leave.
Geography: Because the work is online, you are not restricted by where you are. You are not restricted to where the office is located. So you can work for anyone, anywhere – rather than having to find local people to work with. Suddenly your potential audience is massive. You can work from your laptop with anyone, anywhere in the world.
No commute: The stress, cost and inconvenience of the commute are a thing of the past. Your laptop becomes your business. So you can work from a cottage in the garden, from a local coffee shop – or take your laptop and work from wherever you happen to be. That’s what I have started to do with Vicki. Cheeky weekends (and weeks) away – putting in a few hours a day as we travel.
Technical tools: When you set up an online business these days, so much of the work is done for you by easy-to-use “electronic tools”. Potential customers shop in your website – a website pulled together with new, easy to use tools. Your systems talks to your customers and even follows up – sending pre-prepared emails and other information. And it does things like this on autopilot – even when you are doing something else.
Work life balance: When you work online you don’t have to follow the old work rules. You can spend time with your kids when they are around – and work when they are not. You can work the hours that suite you. You can work where it suits you. So now Vici and I get to spend three or four days a week doing what we want to do. And we shut the guest house for 3 months in the winter and use the time to travel and do whatever we want. We still have to work – but at least we are living a great life while we earn online.
What can you do to earn a living online?
There is so much that you could do. And in so many ways. The trick is to find a way that you can bring your experience to the fore. And to see if you can do it in an area that you like.
This can be your experience from work you have done previously. A lot of people use the internet as a way to set up consulting businesses. I know a chap in Australia who has set up a site teaching people how to use one-man diggers. He took his work experience and built a site that now earns him an income.
It could be from your hobby or interests. My friend Mike has set up an enormously successful online system running choirs. He now earns over £20k a month (less expenses) running choirs – something that he loves to do. He has set up AI to teach the singers and they get together once a month for a formal practice. It could be simply sharing your experience.
There are people earning a very fine income offering advice and sharing information about divorce, menopause, kids leaving home and so on. Wherever you have a skill, or experience – you will find an audience ready to use that experience for themselves.
You can set up websites, training sites, advice sites, selling sites, testing, marking papers, design, virtual assistants, e-commerce, importing, tutoring, freelancing, consulting, researching – actually, I can’t think of anything that you cannot do.
As I say – the trick is to find something you love.
How can I get started online?
When I started I found this set of free training videos. They gave me a great overview of the whole online world.
You get an introduction to the world of working online and its benefits, they explain Affiliate Marketing (one of the most popular ways to start online), they show the ins and outs of sourcing and selling products online – and finish off with a summary of how you might set yourself up to earn an income online.
They are brilliant and these are the same videos that got Vicki and myself started.
How has this worked out for us?
I completed the training and Vicki and I now have three sites set up and running and each of them earns us an income. We are not super-wealthy by any means. But we have shut the café permanently as the ‘hours-worked-to-returns-ratio’ was awful. Up each day at 6am – getting to bed at 10pm. We close the guest house for three months a year so that we can travel and enjoy life.
We have absolutely no debt and we are slowly growing our pension to where we want it to be. Plus – Vicki is planning a 3 week trip to Japan – something that has been on her bucket list for ages. And, there is a cheeky visit to Iceland planned for her birthday in January as well…It is a great life.
And one that I really recommend that you try. You spend some time setting up what you need online, and then it starts to earn for you – even when you are not there. You get to live while the internet earns you an income.