PC#1 - Diversify Your Developer Income

I believe diversification is as important as oxygen.

I’m always trying to diversify my sources of income.

Why?

Because I believe there’s no pride in losing your job and realizing how dependent you were on it.

I had a colleague who got laid off in the middle of a family situation. 10 years in the company and the management didn’t bat an eyelid.

It made him miserable for a long time.

Case in Point - A company is owned by investors. And the job of the executives is to please the investors. Not the employees.

There’s no point in getting so comfortable with the comfy job that you stop planning for a rainy day.

So - what should a developer do?

In my view, developers are uniquely positioned to use the amplifying power of software and media.

This also makes them the best equipped to build a side income.

Here are 3 high-ROI side income ideas that you can start today as a developer:

1 - Freelancing

I started generating my first side income by freelancing. It was the first sweet taste of diversification.

Since I was always interested in writing, my first gigs involved writing research papers about computer science topics.

In my view, there are two important conditions for sustainable freelancing:

• Get repeat customers so that you can charge higher prices.

• Land longer-term gigs so that you don’t have to keep bidding in an overcrowded market.

The first couple of gigs I took up brought just $5-10 for an article. However, once I got some good reviews in the bag and repeat customers, I was able to start charging $200-300 per piece.

Some of my longer gigs ran for almost 6 months netting me a constant source of income.

What about the effort?

Freelancing is certainly time-intensive. Also, quality of work is paramount.

A couple of bad reviews can really sink your account. So, it’s important to make sure you have the skills and time to overdeliver.

Since I was working full-time with a demanding work schedule, there was no way I could give more than 2 hours a day to my writing gigs.

Though I got infrequent after a year or so and completely stopped after 2 years, I did manage to make a good amount of cash.

2 - Tech Blogging

Though freelancing was fun, its time-intensive nature made me irregular about it.

In essence, freelancing is similar to a job.

You trade your time for money and get cash in return.

Of course, you spread the risk of depending on a single job. But your time is still blocked.

My real goal with diversification was to separate money from time so that I can pursue other interests.

This is where tech blogging is a fantastic opportunity for developers to monetize their knowledge.

Here’s a simple 5-step process to start a blog:

• Pick a high-level area (Web development, Backend, DevOps, etc.)

• Choose a framework or tool (NestJS, Terraform, AWS, etc.)

• Select a content bucket within the framework (AWS S3)

• Write all possible articles about the bucket

• Publish

For reference, I started my tech blog in 2019.

Within a span of 24 months, it was bringing close to half of my high-paying tech salary.

But I was actively working on it for only a couple of hours each day. And sometimes, I didn’t work on the blog for months altogether.

And yet, it was bringing in the same amount.

In my view, this is a great type of income diversification because it separates money from time.

3 - Building a SaaS

Building a SaaS isn’t easy. But it can give you the most bang for your buck.

The typical SaaS model works like this:

• Find a problem

• Build a solution (ideally in public)

• Validate the solution

• Scale it to a profitable level

• Grow it further or sell it off

It requires a good upfront investment.

I’m talking about several hours of building software that solves a real problem that people are willing to pay for. On top of it, you may need to invest money to build & operate the solution.

There are higher chances of things not working out.

But even if 1 out of 5 ideas clicks well, you might be rewarded with a 100X return.

Conclusion

Don’t ignore diversification just because you feel loyal to your job.

In fact, I started contributing more at my job once I picked up more skills by freelancing and writing a blog. This made me more valuable to the companies where I worked.

As developers, you are uniquely positioned to leverage the power of code and media.

The important thing is to pick one path and stick to it for a sufficient amount of time.

That’s it for today.

Have a great weekend and see you next week!

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