In one of the previous articles, I wrote about my wife and I deciding how we were going to obtain Financial Freedom. We agreed that the best option for us was to start a business and develop it into a self running cash-generating machine. Obviously we needed to narrow it down a little more than that! So what kind of business should we start?

We wanted to be able to start right away, and we didn’t have large amounts of capitol available to us allowing us to quit our jobs. So in between getting the kids ready for school, we talked about some of our new business options. Since we already have jobs and kids (and a limited budget for this new venture), we immediately dismissed anything that required serious daytime hours. So that pretty much ruled out any traditional brick and mortar style businesses. Whatever we chose would have to be able to be started in our spare time, which generally is in the evenings after the kids go to bed, or on the weekends.

It became obvious to us that we would be starting some sort of on-line business. That definitely made the most sense, especially since I have a little experience in the computer field. But there are still sooooo many options in this category. Nevertheless, we were able to quickly narrow the list down to items we felt fit our guidelines and comfort level:

1) Create content pages (articles, blogs, etc.)
- advertise on those pages using Google AdSense etc.
- advertise on those pages using affiliate type programs
2) Create an online store that sells something
- direct ship
- carry an inventory

Sure, there are lots of other options that other people find successful. For instance, I have a friend that makes great money buying up domain names and including content from other people’s web sites, and advertising on his site. That just isn’t a good fit for what we want to do.

Or I could create a slew of sites for hosting porn. Wow, there is some serious money to be made there. I can’t believe just how much money there is in that business. But again, not exactly the way we want to make cash. I would have a tough time answering the “what do you do” question that inevitably comes up when meeting other parents at my kids school. Thanks, but no thanks…

Let’s start with option number 1. The idea of making content pages would fit nicely within the parameters of our goals. (We want to generate cash-flow without having to trade our time directly for money) So we write something that people will want to read and make it available on the web.

We would need to write things that were as timeless as reasonably possible, or the content would become old quickly and we would just become full time authors. There is nothing wrong with being a full-time author, but as I mentioned before, we are trying to generate cash-flow, not find new careers.

We started to explore ideas. I took out the pen and paper (I prefer to purposely not use the computer because it makes it too easy to start working on an idea when we are just brainstorming) and I asked her (and myself) the obvious question, “What kind of content would we create?”

Immediately we dismissed the topics which would be stale too quickly. I wouldn’t write about technology, and she wouldn’t write about current events. And then we were off and running…

I’ll tell you what, taking notes during a brainstorming session with my wife is impossible. Her brain is beautiful, she’s just plain brilliant. But only the people close to her can really appreciate this part of her. She often times will talk in a way that sounds like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. But it just sounds that way. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that her mind just works waaaay faster than her mouth. So when she talks about something, it comes out in choppy pieces. I like to explain it like this: Imagine if you were about to say 5 sentences, but instead you only said the middle one sentence. Then you went on to the next five sentences, but only said the middle one again. It would start to sound a little confusing, right? People might be thinking, “this person is a nut”. Well that’s how it is when Kate gets excited about a topic.

And if it’s a topic that I am also passionat about, I will hear parts of what she is saying that interest me. Maybe because I caught a little something that sounded neat to me, or maybe just because it was explained in a colorful way. I might say something like “you know 5 minutes ago when you made that weird analogy about a bumble bee? What in the world was that about?” She’ll explain, and I’ll ususally end nodding my head up and down, saying “that makes soooo much sense! I wonder why everyone else doesn’t see that?”

I think her brilliance becomes obvious when she writes. Putting it on paper forces her to slow down and explain things thoroughly. If she actually had the patience (and no kids interrupting her!) to sit down and write a book, I could easily see it on the New York Times Best Seller list. You know what? Once we obtain our fincial freedom, I’m going to give her that time to extract that best-selling novel from her head!

Okay, so you get the idea, I’m crazy about my wife. Now back to the article…

So I’m throwing my ideas out into the room, and she topic hops like crazy while talking too fast. Several hours later, and no notes have been taken. Whoops!

Okay, maybe I should have been recording the conversation or something nerdy like that (we’ll be better prepared for our next brainstorming session). What was obvious to us both was that there was a lot of things we could write about. Interesting stuff that people would want to read. Topics that weren’t over-used on the internet already. We’ll put a check mark next to that option and call it “possible” for now. When we come back to this option, we’ll dig further into the options for advertising too. But for right now, Kate and I can move onto talking about the other option, which involves selling something online.