Passive Income Ideas To Make Money from Your Laptop

What are some of the passive income ideas that you can pursue to have multiple streams of income? In this digital age, creating streams of income online has now become more accessible now more than ever compared to back in the 90s or before the invention of the internet and the computer.

Most millionaires that have managed to build wealth in a short time at a young age have often done it through an online platform.

Here are some passive income ideas that you may want to consider:

1. Selling a digital product
2. Selling a course
3. Building a membership community
4. Automating a business
5. Building an app or website

1. Selling a digital product

This could be an ebook, download or an app. You can sell it multiple times because the cost is the same to sell 1 digital product vs 1,000 digital product unlike physical inventories.

Here are some examples of people who have done it:

- Traf- iOS Icons 

The founder of Traf, Oliur sells app icons for close to $30 and managed to make around $300,000 in a few weeks because many people were interested in using his icons on their phones.

He puts in the initial work up front, and from then he enjoys the recurring rewards without needing much work on his part to maintain it.

- Tumblr Themes

The founder Oliur made $600k plus selling tumble themes. Ali Abdaal (a well known Youtuber) even interviewed him on his channel to get his insights on how he managed to generate such a massive amount through his digital product.

The founder makes Tumblr themes that are attractive and sells them to interested parties that use them and display them on their Tumblr posts. That is pretty darn cool if you ask me.

How hard is it trying to make $100 a month?

The market is competitive, but if you are genuinely able to add value to people. You could make $100 per month.

2. Selling a course

Online courses are similar to digital course but generally online courses are in video format. Eg Udemy, Masterclass, Skillshare, Teachable and etc.

Generally, it isn't too difficult to create an online course, anyone can create an online course however getting sales from it is a whole different thing as the course needs to be of high quality to attract an audience that wants to buy the course. The good thing is that for online courses you only need to do the initial hard work upfront and then you can have a consistent stream of income coming in without having to keep making new videos. You would just focus on maintaining and upgrading your existing online course. In that aspect, it's much easier than selling physical inventories.

How hard is it trying to make $100 a month?

This would really depend on the course made and marketing it. The course needs to be good. If it is, then making $100 wouldn't be too difficult.

Some of those that have been successful in creating online courses include:

• Ali Abdaal: Productivity course and Part-time Youtuber academy course
• Zed Monopoly: Trading course
• Ryan Scribner: Affiliate marketing course
• Kevin David, and Marketplace Superheroes: Amazon FBA course

3. Building a membership community

Paid membership or community model. This model is usually only effective if you have an existing audience.

How hard is it trying to make $100 a month?

To get $100 a month you need to provide $100 worth of value which can be challenging. However, once you manage to figure out how to get there, the process of maintaining it is much easier. This is because when you provide value in some capacity people are going to want to sign up and benefit from the value that you are offering

This could for eg be a Patreon, Buy Me A Coffee, Indiegogo or even Kickstarter.

4. Automating a business

This is creating a business that sells goods and services.

Once you have got an infrastructure in place, the business can run automatically with little effort and supervision. 

This could be an online e-commerce store or a brick and mortar store. 

Having an Amazon FBA business, dropshipping business or online store can allow you to generate sales relatively passive as you need not physically be there to fulfil and process an order. Once you have the right infrastructure in place for eg, supply chain management, quality products and a good third party warehouse provider, your store could run autonomously.

Amazon FBA fulfils orders for you so you need not worry about shipping and handling. Shopify store provides you with a website platform to sell products and to fulfil orders. Dropshipping platforms only ship items once a sale is made so you do not need to buy so many inventories.

How hard is it trying to make $100 a month?

If you can get traction with people viewing your products, making $100 wouldn't be too difficult. You would also need to consider the selling price of the product or service itself.

For example, Kevin David has multiple amazon FBA business that brings in thousands of dollars each month by selling everyday products that we use.

Oliur, a famous Youtuber runs his $1 million Shopify store selling vegan wallets and accessories.

A helpful book is The 4-hour workweek, by Tim Ferris. In his book you learn about how you can delegate, outsource, and automate your business to make passive income.

5. Building an app or website

Next, you can build an app or a website. This would be some kind of software product that you can offer as a one-off or a subscription based model. There is a whole category for this, software as a service (SAS).

If you look up indiehackers.com there are thousands of examples of people who have built software businesses that you can model or use as a guide to get you started. 

How hard is it trying to make $100 a month?

This could be a challenge. Firstly you need to be able to code, secondly, you need it to be something compelling that people want and thirdly you need to build it and market it to the market. If you are good with coding, this is something you can consider. Alternatively, you can work with programmers and software developers if you have something in mind to develop.

It's important to note-getting people to use the app or the software is a completely new ball game, so you will need to be prepared to market and get the product out to generate income streams. 

Eg, creating video editing apps and offering a paid feature for additional access on the Apple iOS or the Android Playstore.

Conclusion

These are just a few ways of building this passive income stream there are many more ways to do so. The great thing is you can do it with just your laptop and an internet connection. If you have the desire and tenacity to pursue these ventures instead of a conventional 9–5 job, you would be amazed at the potential it brings. 

You can even pursue it as a side hustle until takes off before pursuing it full time. Get started, you never know if this could lead to something amazing.

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