Welcome to my income report for November 2019

In November I have earned $167 in total. About 19% less than in the previous month.

This is because of no active income and also because of declining interest rates on savings accounts.

What I did in November

Learned to optimize Facebook Ads

In November, my commitment to a 9-5 project in Vienna reached unseen levels as we were approaching the end of the program. It was critical to do everything right and find proof, that our idea has billion-dollar potential.

I always followed the advice that the most convincing proof is the outcome and not the words. And I did it by betting all our stake into an optimized Facebook Ad campaign.

It didn't go well at first. My Facebook Ad account got disabled due to repeated violations of the ad policies.

And also my first video ad performed poorly. Even though it got great engagement and feedback from others.

Then I got lucky and met a new Russian coworker in our Innovation hub and she helped me to create an Ad, tailored to the Russian market, which allowed us to gain incredible traction of almost 5000 early adopters.

I learned so much about Facebook marketing in November. Now I am confident enough to use Facebook Ads as my funnel in the future.

My cousin built a million-dollar business thanks to Facebook campaigns and now I understand how he did it.

Earned the first dollar with Google AdSense

One of the key moments was a decision to add an AdSense to my blog. For a long time, I didn't want to pollute my blog with advertisements.

But you know what? If the article is good. And I add a non-intrusive ad, that blends with the article style. Then I don't think my reader will mind.

To my surprise, I realized my old AdSense account was still active. The one, that I used back in 2008 for my first niche websites.

And there was unpaid money on that account. How cool is that?

So I added AdSense to my most viewed articles and was delighted, that I got one click in November. It is not much, but that one dollar was earned passively.

Got in contact with Gabo Saturno

Another major event was when a US fitness celebrity, Gabo Saturno, commented on my transformation blog post.

I could not believe my eyes when I saw his comment in the WordPress admin section.

First, this man changed my life when I injured my back by doing heavy deadlifts. Thanks to him I incorporated yoga and flexibility routines into my workouts.

Second, he is a super humble person, who likes to help others and went through the same fitness journey as me. From bodybuilding to calisthenics and ending with yoga practice.

Third, he started his own online business just a year ago and got a quite big following thanks to his superior handstand skills.

So I immediately sent him a thank you email and ask him for the opportunity to review his online calisthenics program. He swiftly responded with a super long, super nice email that suggested, that he will offer access for free.

I hope he will stand by his words and I can again challenge myself with yet another long-term fitness program.

Generated content with AI

Another cool thing I tackled in November was trying to generate articles with an AI.

I won't share many details. But I am curious if you can identify, which blog post was written by an AI. Of course, no AI can produce readable content, so there was some minor hand-editing involved.

Live projects

The Hustle App

In November, I continued to use Hustle every day, while smashing bugs and making changes in the process.

The major milestone was

adding drag and drop to goal cards
auto-populating user data after user activation
adding redirects to react-router paths
adding offline warning
adding repeated ajax calls if it fails on the first try
fixing many many bugs

So in December, I would like to:

Refactor Django REST API serializers to include pagination
Add missing user management screens such as resetting the password
Beta testing with family and friends

All my effort should aim for public release after New Year's Eve.

The best time to launch a productivity app. When everyone is setting New Year's resolutions and trying to improve their lives.

I am so nervous that my app will tank. After all, the market is saturated with such tools and the to-do list is the number one app after "Hello world", that every beginner creates as a part of learning.

Good House Music

At the time of writing this post, my channel grew to 36 subscribers. A 28% increase over the previous month.

Currently, I am thinking about how to speed up the render process. My old desktop with Intel Core i3 needs a full week to render a 30 minutes video. I cannot compete with pros, who are using 10k USD worth Apple Mac Pro like this.

With this pace, It takes more than two weeks to publish one video, which is not enough. The only solution is to buy a new expensive render rig. Let's see if I get any PC components for Christmas from Santa.

Financia

The only thing I added to my site was an option to filter properties by disposition and size.

Other than that the website is pretty much dead. I should at least update interest rate tables to keep it up to date.

Income Report Breakdown

P2P Lending

I finally managed to fix the P2P lending bot.

It was a painful process because P2P Lender changed the whole authentication process and didn't even bother to change API documentation.

But thanks to my friend Jan I made it half functioning again. I am saying half because I cannot figure out, how to get a token, that lasts longer than 24 hours.

So every time a token expires, I have to manually log in to the dashboard and obtain an authentication code, which is then used to get a new auth token.

Never the less, I am going to cash out a part of the portfolio and put it into another lender.

Savings Accounts

No comment.

Affiliate Sales

I recorded one affiliate sale in November, which is nice considering having only two monetized blog posts.

Someone clicked through my affiliate links and bought a phone case. I wonder if people get hyped about learning pull-ups, click on the link and then change their mind and buy something unrelated, such as a cup holder.

In December, I will try to write a legit product review article to see if it performs better.

AdSense

In 2019, AdSense is not the best way to monetize your blog. Times, when you got 2-5 USD per click, are long gone.

I remember how easy it was to earn money with AdSense back in the day. You just put banners everywhere and people clicked like crazy. My niche website about Japanese culture made good pocket money with minimum effort.

Now people use ad blockers or web browsers, that automatically filter out any ad network. So the only channel, that gets any clicks comes from mobile devices. Times are tough and revenue per thousand visitors can range anywhere from 0.5 EUR to 1 EUR.

But despite all the cons, any cent earned from AdSense is passive. And if it is passive, it is worth the initial effort.

Plans, dreams, and wishes

My goals for December haven't changed. Release The Hustle to the public and start a new personal Youtube channel.

Most importantly, Christmas is coming. The only time of the year, when I can relax and catch up with games, movies, and TV series I missed over the year. Can't wait for it.

Wish me luck, Happy Christmas, and see you next month.

Income Report Nov 2019 - First AdSense Revenue