Consultant by day, blogger by night, Eduardo Litonjua shares his experience blogging and making money online on his personal finance blog, Passive Income Tree.
Where did the idea for Passive Income Tree come from?
I wanted to create a passive income stream by sharing my knowledge of profitable business models. Having created a successful ecommerce store and more recently a lead generation roofing business – I wanted to create an online resource for how people could do the same – hence the name Passive Income Tree.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
Most of my day typically involves outreach – I will spend the first 2 or 3 hours reaching out to sites who I can collaborate with on content. For the next 4 hours, I am developing content on my own site and the final 3 hours are spent writing up guest posts.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I try to use examples wherever I can to illustrate a concept. Whether it be on abandoned cart email strategies or specific lead generation companies that are doing well. Using real life examples helps flesh out the topic in better detail.
What’s one trend that excites you?
The advancements in AI and ML are very interesting to me – in particular GPT3 and how you can automate text generation with machine learning.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Consistency.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Be willing to take more calculated risks.
Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
The culture of a workplace is more important than anything else.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Develop a routine that you can religiously execute day in and day out. There will be good days and bad days but having a solid routine can help anchor you.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?
Clearly defined and measurable goals within the next 6 months, 1 year and 5 year help you take tangible action everyday to make them a reality.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
I had an Amazon FBA business that failed some time ago because of a quality issue. I learned that product inspection and quality checking is very very important. I had the faulty component removed and then resold my stock at breakeven at a wholesale price. I learned the importance of tenacity from this.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Create an investment fund focused on internet assets / online businesses (e.g. websites). Returns on websites can be between 20 – 30% annually (on marketplaces such as Flippa and Empire Flippers) but I have not seen many companies which pool assets and create a fund to buy out website assets.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
I recently lost $100 on the Forex market daytrading currencies from a $1000 account. Even though this was a loss, to me, I have learned to be much more disciplined as a trader because of it. I also saw how valuable having an automated passive income stream vs more stressful variable income.
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?
Google Sheets. You can do so much with it from creating databases to mass email outreach. You can even build a mobile app entirely from it using Glide.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
Atomic Habits – James Clear. It gives you a good foundation and understanding of why habits are important and how to build the right ones.
What is your favorite quote?
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
Key Learnings:
- Consistency is more important than intelligence.
- Habits are the bedrock for how you can create this consistency.
- Create clearly defined and measurable goals for success and work backwards from them to define shorter term goals.
- Take risks once in a while – not everything in life has to be planned.
- Entrepreneurship is a journey of self exploration – don’t expect success at the get-go.
Carlyn runs the day-to-day publishing operation here at ideamensch and interacts with our awesome customers and entrepreneurs. She is likely editing this with a cat on her lap.