The point is that he didn’t even flinch at the rate. I thought about it. Maybe my blogging at CodersEye is so great and such a credibility enhancer that he was primed for me. Possibly my work with the Satchmo open-source Shopping Cart Engine was the selling point. Those help of course, but they also help me with my U.S. customers.

Then I realized the key difference. He’s German. To him, with an incredibly strong Euro, my rate was normal, or even a bit cheap. Haha! I’m the cheap outsourced labor now.

So how do I feel, being exploited

I feel wonderful. I can charge my preferred hourly rate, so I win. He can pay me at a reasonable-to-him rate so he wins. If this is exploitation, I’m all for it. Please, exploit me.

Hey all you Europeans! Outsource to the newly cheap American programmers!

Technorati Tags: outsourcing

I first read about “the phenomenon” from Dan Kennedy’s book “No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs”. In a nutshell, it is when you make more money in 12 months than in the previous 6 years.

Now, I haven’t done that yet, but I’m beginning to see how it might happen for me. I’ve more than doubled my normal income in the last month, and that’s with only one foot in the stream.

OK, so maybe that is a bit of crazy metaphor. Still, I’m only starting to apply effort to my consulting business, and already I’m seeing a shocking amount of interest. I can see how this could seriously take off for me and for my partners.

This could be the springboard into “the phenomenon” for me. I’m working flat out, 100% committed to seeing just that occur. I think it might be the most thrilling and terrifying thing I’ve ever done in business. The key, for me, has been working with partners.

Almost instantly, when I joined with two like-minded individuals, we began seeing a surge in interest. How incredible that a guy who has always tried to do everything on his own is finally learning that things are so much easier and more fun when you have help.

Technorati Tags: phenomenon, wealth, entrepreneur

It’s funny, I wasn’t sure what to call the investment. “Long term investment”, “part of my wealth cycle” or as an “FFA investment”. These are all terms from various wealth building books I’ve read. I think I like “FFA” the best. That stands for “Financial Freedom Account”, from “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker. The very simple idea is that in order to get wealthy, you need to put 10% of your income into an account whose only purpose is to grow. All profits from that account go back into the account until it is large enough to support me all by itself.

Mr. Eker’s system, which I really should make some standalone entries about, doesn’t really go into much detail about how to grow that account. On the other hand, Loral Langemeier’s excellent new book, “The Millionaire Maker’s Guide to Wealth Cycle Investing” does an excellent job of explaining some of the strategies available to grow that money.

Reading Ms. Langemeier’s book, I got to thinking about Prosper.com, and how perfectly it seems to fit my needs as a wealth accelerator. It seems like a very straightforward way to make reasonable money, while retaining some degree of liquidity and also receiving monthly payouts.

How it works

Basically, Prosper is an loan buying and selling marketplace. I plan to be a lender in this system, so how it works for me is that I bid on loans. I bid on the specific rate acceptable to me. I don’t have to take the whole loan, I can take a part-share of a loan (or multiple loans), thus reducing my exposure risk. I can see the loan requesters’ credit rating, payment history and debt-to-loan ratio. That way, people with better ratings and ratios get better rates.

For example, I could take $100 each of 10 “A” rating short-term loans, at 11% interest. That’s how I plan to do it, spreading the risk around rather than taking on one lender at a time. Rates are higher for larger sums and for longer loan periods.

Prosper makes the loans themselves and then resells the debt to you. It collects the money and disburses it. That sounds ideal, keeping the paperwork for me at a minimum.

Prosper makes this all much more interesting by adding the idea of “groups” to the mix. People can belong to groups dedicated to various purposes. The groups themselves have ratings, so the lenders can see, for example, how many late payments members of the group have ever made. That way, groups get better rates than individuals, and peer pressure helps make sure people stay on time with their payments. I think that idea is brilliant.

I just got set up for Prosper on Friday. Like PayPal, it involves bank account verification, so I can’t fully participate just yet. I am very mucg looking forward to getting my feet wet on this opportunity. I’ll be sure to share how it is going!

Technorati Tags: prosper, prosper.com, lending, promissory notes, ffa, ekar

eBookTribe

eBookTribe sells custom information product graphics. My comptetition is, for the most part, kids who think they can design a good eBook cover, and who certainly cannot design a professional looking website. There are a few other serious professionals, but at least one of them is taking no new business, due to his plate being completely full. Certainly there is room for another. My designer-partner Kelvin is somewhat worried about competition, but I say (and believe) that competition means there is money in the niche.

eBookTribe is my second LLC started in the last year. I’m getting much better at doing the paperwork!

Kroozio

I landed my first freelance e-commerce programming on Saturday, doing business as “Kroozio”, which is a lot easier to spell and remember than my real last name. I’m creating a website for a great artist, along with some serious customization to a standard e-commerce cart. The cart checkout is going to be quite a bit different than “stock”, which will be fun and challenging to do properly.

I know I’ve seriously underbid the project. It is a flat-fee for results, and I’m going to most likely make less than half my target rate, but it is totally worth it. The client is great, the site looks great, and I’m determined to make her my evangelist.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, startup, launch, ebooktribe, ebooks, freelancing

Now I’m going to unburden my self of my robotics hobby, as well as ridding myself of any computer equipment that I’m not using now. I expect this will be even more painful than it was to get rid of my old books. With any luck it will be just as lucrative as well. In any case, I know I’m going to feel an expanding sense of freedom, so I’m really looking forward to this.

I’m using the excellent software iSale to set up and track my auctions. Yes, I could hand-write the HTML, but what a waste of time! iSale makes it so easy for me, by letting me use custom templates with drag and drop from iPhoto for auction pictures. It even tracks the current bidding on my dashboard and sets a reminder date in my calendar.

So far I’ve completed three auctions, and started three more. I just crossed the milestone of 100 positive reviews on eBay, which I hope helps spur a bit more confidence in my auctions.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, eBay

I’ve got about 150 books listed right now. Obviously, most of the hottest sellers have already sold, but I think there is plenty of money to be made. I expected the sales to slow when I stopped always hitting the lowest price. Some times, when I have a better quality book than others, I price significantly higher than the lowest.

I can wait after all. I expect a big surge in the fall when kids go back to college somewhat flush with money. I only have another couple boxes of books to sell, mostly lesser books, fiction and the like. So now on to the great eBay cleanup!

Technorati Tags: Amazon, used books

I’m incredibly pleased to report that I actually saved about 12% of my gross income last year. That is a true first for me. 38 Years old and I’ve finally started doing what I should have been doing since I was twenty. Oh well, that’s water under the bridge. The important thing is that I did it, and I didn’t really miss the money.

OK, I did miss the money, but not as bad as I thought I would.

Now, I’m changing jobs May 1, so I have a bunch of financial moves to make. These are pretty interesting ones I think. Lots of options open up during a job change. I’m planning to open a new self-directed IRA for the 401K money from my current employer. I favor Roth IRAs for regular saving, but this is already tax-deferred and I’m going to leave it that way. I’ll invest it in a couple funds for this purpose. Unlike many, I do think individual investors can do very well hand-picking stocks (and I’ve done very well doing just that), but I like to buy and hold in my retirement accounts. Currently I plan to use UDPIX (Ultra DOW 30, leveraged for double-DOW returns … or losses) and DODFX (a stellar international fund) to grow this money.

I’ll be making about 20% more at the new job, which I’m going to split 50/50, allocating 10% of the increase to max out my Roths and to get the max company match in the new 401K. The other 10% will go to accelerated pay-down of my remaining debt. In the last year I’ve paid-off five credit cards, and only have one remaining balance. I plan to retire that debt within six months.

Technorati Tags: retirement planning, investment, udpix, dodfx