Business

So, I have finally done it-- I jumped into running my own business full-time. Looking back and counting every job I've had since my first paper route there have been about 13 companies/people I've worked for over the last 15 years. The different jobs range from picking weeds for my high school teacher to running world wide webcasts for Fortune 500s to building computer software and hardware for small companies. Now, I'm off and running a technology consulting firm and have to make it or break it on my own!

Good article over at Sillicon Alley Insider comparing the different types of entrepreneurs, what to do if you're running a start-up right now, and some interesting stories of business successes and failures. Check it out. Make sure you read down to "the good news".

I have flown over 30 flights in the first 8 months of this year, have over 120,000 frequent flyer miles on Northwest Airlines alone, and have been to cities across the U.S. I do all this travel as part of my job in working with broadcasters to get their streaming media online and it's a great time in my life to do it! However, it's also an ideal time to make sure my finances are in line so the next 30 or 40 years lead to good growth and income. It can be challenging when you're putting so much focus into helping Oprah put on her first webcast or Barack Obama streaming his acceptance speech for the democratic presidential nomination in HD. In this article I discuss methods for keeping personal finances in order while doing a lot of travel for work.

For those of you looking to determine how much you should be paid for a certain job try the Online Wage Library. Companies employing foreign laborers with temporary or permanent work visas must report how much they are paying them. As a result, this database of pay scales is available online as an alternative source to others like Salary.com (another good site I'd recommend).

I made my first web page in late 1994. Two weeks ago I finally cashed in for the first time and am now $106.51 richer! Read below to learn my story of how I made my first $1 off this blog and what I plan to do next...

A little over a year ago I had a steady job, reasonable working hours, and plenty of spare time. I realized that although I've been using and programming on the Internet for over 13 years I had yet to make any money directly off it by way of Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, or anything else. I decided I would start this finance blog as a way of recording my discoveries as a young professional and perhaps I'd even learn something about making money with it. I was familiar with the basic ideas behind Google Adsense and thought it held real possibility since it didn't require people to do anything else but simply click the ad to generate anything from a few cents to a few dollars in ad revenue!

Little did I know what I was getting into since as a percentage of all viewers, a very small percentage of readers actually click on any ads. I then started venturing down the path of learning how to get traffic, how to position ads, how to read what my audience found interesting, and how frequently I had to actually get off my butt and write something!