Too many income streams?

I don't think it hurts to try things out, but over time, it is likely ideal to concentrate on the top performers.

Personally, I don't have many avenues for income, but I'm working on launching multiple products in the same space (graphics). I figure if one product does well, it can bring attention to my other products.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

I’ve met a few business owners in my time who had one product with multiple revenue streams and they did very well. Concrete example, one was a jobs portal (this is over a decade ago before “job boards” as we know it). Their bread and butter business was selling job ads of course, but they also did events, training seminars, and their job ad product had several upsell features.

The business happily supported about 10 employees and the owners had a pretty chill lifestyle.

Great job getting so many streams up and running!

Diversification is healthy once an avenue is relatively low maintenance and stable.

I wouldn't be pushing hard to grow more than one or two at any given moment, though.

It’s a good experiment to see what works and what doesn’t but at some point I’d make a choice.

I’d pick the 3 that could scale the most and focus time and resources there.

Hmm. Different strokes for different folks. I don't think there's a right way. I tend to think one big thing scales in a way 10 smaller things doesn't.

Hey Pete - Big fan of your transparency on twitter.

I'm looking to kickoff an affiliate program.

Since you have been at this for a bit. Can I pick you brain on affiliate program?

Looking forward to it.

Not an exact science but read up on the 80/20 rule.

Chances are 1 or 2 of those are responsible for the bulk of combined revenue.
If so then added effort on those few should deliver the greatest returns.

The lower revenue ones are still valuable to test opportunity but should reduce effort to their suitable level. Until the key drivers hit capacity then you need to pick the next best to drive upwards.

The way I see it, it’s four revenue streams with different subsets:

1. Advertising
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Premium Content
4. Memberships

I don’t see an issue with that, except if you feel you aren’t able to capitalize in full on all of them. You might then need to focus.

What I'll recommend and what I've seen worked for many of my clients is to set a priority list.

Take time to look over each of the streams and note down 👇

1. Importance (personal and impact)
2. Monthly income
3. Possible crash (yeah sh*t happen best to prepare for it) and
4. Which is taking so much time from you.

When you pick one that's really important to you and also brings in the most.. Push it with the others and recycle the same process.

Just a thought.

Do you have a break down of how you are making money in these areas? In particular, I am interested in your "bootcamp listings" and "job ads" income streams. Appreciate you sharing!

You'll want to figure out whether you can get one's user base growing at a percentage (month over month), and then make that percentage as high as possible.

I modeled this in a spreadsheet. See three different outcomes modeled in the three tabs of the spreadsheet. Go to "File => Make a copy" to experiment with your own details. The key that you're looking for is "Revenue after 2 years." Notice that all else equal, doubling down on one of them produces higher revenue. Focusing on all of them does cause growth, but less than doubling down on the best one.

Of course, all else is not equal! Tons will depend on your situation. And this doesn't model things like churn, etc, which may change as a result of products being abandoned. And you may need to work on multiple to find the winner. So please make a copy and enter your specifics to see how the numbers change.

8 is better than 0!

Mine have zero so far 😅 although in my defense, I haven’t really started monetizing yet.

I think it’s amazing that you have so many different income streams. Guess you could still focus mostly on one or two top priority ones while letting the others just kind of follow along? Which ones are the best performing for you?