What do you do?

Figured I would share my quick story here. Bullet points are:

Worked for British Telecom for a long time. Network Engineer. Cisco routing, troubleshooting circuits, and babysitting the network.

September 2014 - Good friend got canned at work. Other groups had been laid off before but in my group we were pretty isolated since we were already lean.
Made me wake up and realize anyone could get fired at any time pretty much.

October 2014 - Because of his getting fired, I started looking for a "side hustle". A secondary income stream for some security if I got fired.
December 2014 - After trying and exploring a few things (ebooks, blogs, affiliate marketing), I decided to get into selling physical products online, mostly Amazon FBA.
May 6th 2015 - Launched my first product.
By September 2015 I was planning on leaving my job.
By December I was ready
Put it off because I was playing it safe

March 2016 I was still at work, but went to a conference in Utah on ecommerce
Day I got back from that conference my supervisor messages me saying to go someplace private and call him on his cell.
They were having more layoffs, they wanted 2 "volunteers" if anyone was ready to leave.
Volunteered, got a half year salary as severence.
Been working for myself since. Can't imagine going back.

So you buy shit in bulk and resell? That's cool, I always wondered how people figured that game out.

Pretty much yeah. Pick a niche to serve (Pets, babies, sports, health, yoga, beauty, gaming). Create a brand based on that audience. Find some products that sell well or are sought out. Find some factories that manufacture said items. Make any modifications or improvements, have them made, put your brand on it. Send them in to Amazon FBA or put them on your own site and get a fulfillment company to deliver any orders. Market it. Rinse and repeat.

Dashel_sl said:

Pretty much yeah. Pick a niche to serve (Pets, babies, sports, health, yoga, beauty, gaming). Create a brand based on that audience. Find some products that sell well or are sought out. Find some factories that manufacture said items. Make any modifications or improvements, have them made, put your brand on it. Send them in to Amazon FBA or put them on your own site and get a fulfillment company to deliver any orders. Market it. Rinse and repeat.

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What kind of money do you pull off it. It's never looked like "job-quitting" level of money to me.

This is my year to date so far this year. Gross sales and estimated income after everything from Jan 1st to now. Big caveat is that a lot of money gets tied up in inventory and expanding your product line, so cash flow is a bitch at first. But it's still good.

(EDIT: This is BEFORE taxes, which blow)

This doesn't bode well for my LinkedIn as I never get contacted. Uh oh...

Dashel_sl said:

This is my year to date so far this year. Gross sales and estimated income after everything from Jan 1st to now. Big caveat is that a lot of money gets tied up in inventory and expanding your product line, so cash flow is a bitch at first. But it's still good.

(EDIT: This is BEFORE taxes, which blow)

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Thats not bad YTD.

Crone_sl said:

This doesn't bode well for my LinkedIn as I never get contacted. Uh oh...

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You will. Don't worry.

Once I listed Emc as my job I was getting called daily. With my new job I'm getting called at the office with job offers. I don't even know how they found my number.

chaos_sl said:

Half the recruiters who contact me barely even speak english. Of the remaining half, about half of those are for bullshit jobs. Of that remaining 25%, about 900% of those are for HBSS. fuckers.

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I think a lot of it has to do with profile details and who you're networked to. I don't add a lot of bullshit people on LinkedIn; it's there for work not as Facebook Lite. I honestly don't know though. My hit rate has been pretty good.

Noodleface_sl said:

You will. Don't worry.

Once I listed Emc as my job I was getting called daily. With my new job I'm getting called at the office with job offers. I don't even know how they found my number.

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There are some definite updates to my LinkedIn that are required. You know how it is when you get a job, you kind of forget to update the resume and LinkedIn for a few months, because job hunting isn't on the mind... but that's probably the wrong mindset to have in todays world?

Yeah I need to do better job with maintaining it. I'm exaggerating a bit, I do get a lot of bad hits but I do get a good amount of good ones. But I think that is more reflective of the security industry than anything I am doing right.

I try to keep it updated as I like to entertain any serious offer that comes my way.

Maybe I'm weird but I'm always looking

I actually did have a decent looking recruitment in my inbox the other week. Company was called GrubHub basically doing web service development. The company looked neat but I'd never really want to move to Chicago plus I'm more excited about my current opportunity.

My experience with Linked In is that updating it causes drama. It always gets back to someone in the company and then "omg did you hear Bob is leaving".

Palum_sl said:

My experience with Linked In is that updating it causes drama. It always gets back to someone in the company and then "omg did you hear Bob is leaving".

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There's a setting for that to turn off notification of updates. People don't look at your profile that often, so if you switch those off people won't have a reason to notice the changes. I only switch mine on when job hunting.

I try to update the language on mine at least every 6 months, and sooner if I end up with a certification or new job responsibility. The only things I don't add are what I don't want drawing attention from my current employer, like contract work.

I got pinged yesterday for a senior UX job in town which sounded quite promising, but it would mean driving through shitty traffic and I haven't done a full year in my current role. I want at least 1 year, preferably 2, before bouncing somewhere else. It at least gives my current company time to offer advancement.

Palum_sl said:

My experience with Linked In is that updating it causes drama. It always gets back to someone in the company and then "omg did you hear Bob is leaving".

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I was going to mention that, another reason I always keep it up to date. Whenever I see someone do a full update I Know they're looking.

Noodleface_sl said:

I always get stupid recruiters for aflac as a sales rep

I updated LinkedIn and monster and I've been fielding calls nonstop. Applied to 4 or 5 places (and Google, but lol) .

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Updated my location and resume on Monster, and pretty sure every single insurance company so far has emailed, called, or text. It's crazy!

Really glad to be able to get Networking onto the resume. Have my CCNA, and will add A+ and Sec+ by end of the year so usajobs.gov thinks I'm legit. Lol. Although, another year after that when I finish my Bachelors, that will make more of a difference than any of the certifications in terms of job qualifications I think.

Tenks_sl said:

Join linkedin and you get to do it 3 times a week

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No shit. Got one this week for a PM posistion related to IT work. Umm try reading more than Project Manager next time dipshit lol.

I did get one once and wound up going to Washington and basically spending a week in Seattle and Anacortes on their dime. Otherwise 99% of them are for the wrong industry.

Anyone ever make vidoes/youtube or otherwise much? I'm seriously considering doing a few just based on the number of request I've had for a particular product AutoDesk has been push and their customers have said they look online since it comes with no documentation at all and all the videos are foreign.

I've done a few screencapture lessons for different things using Jing and SnagIt. It's not too hard to do, takes a bit of time depending on how much editing and how in depth.

Some people have made a good amount of money doing really ultimate guides to popular apps. I'm thinking in particular of Brett Kelly with Evernote.