Financial independence retire early and starting an online business has a natural affinity.
Increasing your savings to reach financial independence quicker makes starting an online business attractive.
- You can learn more about the FIRE movement, in this ABC news article.
- Aussie Firebug also has great information.
The Back Story
To increase my income, through starting an online business Your Online Journey was created. Being a business owner or starting a side hustle to increase your savings rate is one option on the path to financial independence.
Its a path that does have some pitfalls. But, there is constant learning and growth. Plus, you have a lot of choice over the type or business you choose to start. There are many articles on this site designed to help you with the online business journey.
The autonomy, freedom, challenge, growth and constant learning of an online business are major drawcards. Its also an investment in future financial goals, and an opportunity to help others with theirs.
The Side Hustle
The Barefoot Investor (highly recommend) outlines one of his strategies for wealth creation is the ‘side hustle’. An online business is one option to get an additional income stream.
A great side hustle can help you on your path to Financial Independence by boosting your income.
Why choose to start an online business as part of your journey to financial independence?
The FIRE movement is about saving as much of your income as possible. And, using those savings for wealth creation.
If you increase your income you boost your savings rate. Therefore, the amount of money that you can put towards wealth creation.
There are some great communities around the FIRE movement that share their tips for increasing savings and income. The classic side hustle or online business is a recurring theme.
One Case Study: Aussie Firebug’s Online Blog
Aussie Firebug is an example in how to start an online business that suits your interests and contribute to your long term goals.
Monthly posts shows the progress and journey to financial freedom, delivering value and inspiration. The contribution his blog makes to those financial goals is also included in these updates. This transparency and authenticity is a large part of Aussie Firebug’s community.
Aussie Firebug has a super strong ‘why’ created by his desire for early retirement.
To achieve FIRE :
- Work out your retirement number, the net worth you need to Retire Early (your objective)
- Create a series of goals (short, mid and long term) that you will need to achieve to reach your objective
- Put in place the strategies you need to achieve your goals (and ultimately your objective)
Part of Aussie Firebug’s strategy to achieve early retirement was starting a blog. That blog has helped in a few ways:
- Able to learn more and become and expert in an area of great interest to him
- Reach goals faster by creating a level of accountability
- Additional income that can be used for wealth creation and
- Feedback and advice from others in the community that follow his progress.
What’s to love about this strategy of creating a blog?
- Helps others and him!
- Has found a niche where there is a supportive and positive community.
- Gained traction early and benefited from raising popularity
How to achieve Financial Independence Retire Early, starting an online business?
First, you need to learn what FIRE is all about – so check out the Aussie Firebug website.
Secondly, you need to look at how to start an online business. Take the right steps at the start can help setup your online business for success.
How is income created from the blog?
Aussie Firebug makes it money through Affiliate Marketing – that is affilliate links. But that wouldn’t be possible if there wasn’t a tonne of value being created for their audience.
There are a few things that Aussie Firebug is doing really well:
- Affiliate links – earning a small commission from a link that helps you get income and doesn’t cost the visitor anything. “I will never recommend a service or product I don’t believe in. Affiliate commissions help me continue running and maintaining aussiefirebug.com”. Is a great and transparent use of affiliate links in an ethical way! Love it!
- Using WordPress as his content management system / website builder. This will keep costs down as he can choose cost effective website hosting such as Siteground or Crazy Domains and allows greater control over this costs.
- Specialised niche. Has become an expert / infuencer in and its also a growing in popularity (see chart 1).
- Great Calls to Action connected to email marketing automation using Convertkit.
- Focuses on delivering value to his audience. Aussie Fire Bug has a clear audience and has created tools that will be valuable enough to them that they are very willing to hand over their email address. Aussie Firebug then stays in touch with them through email marketing, after the initial automatic email sequence that delivers that tool.
- Search engine optimisation and no paid traffic (see chart 2). Aussie Firebug’s SEO is very strong. The valuable resources that are provided are tailored to the Australian audience and shared in online communities which creates a high volume of backlinks.
- Keep it simple! I think simple is a key success factor in a side hustle. You don’t always have tonnes of time for a side hustle (after all its a side business). Keep it simple.
- Podcast. A podcast is a great way to keep connected with your audience.
How you can get an online blog started in a similar way:
- Use our Business Focus Workbook to discover your niche, audience, goals and objectives.
- Get started today with our 5 Simple Steps to Start an Online Business. This guide takes you through researching and choosing a business / blog name, registering your website address and getting your site published.
In Summary:
This is just one example of a blogger that has used starting a blog and online business in their journey to FIRE.
Financial Independence Retire Early and Starting an Online Business can go hand and hand. If you create an online business that is profitable and sustainable it can help you reach financial independence quicker.
Aussie Firebug is a great blog to follow if you are looking at a Side Hustle or Online Business to achieve FIRE.
Your Online Journey? Well, YOJ was setup to inspire and help people to start and grow their online business in a sustainable, success-focused way. It helps you learn how to start and grow your online business.
Aussie Firebug is a great example of how it can be done.
Charting the online journey:
The below chart is from Google Trends and shows two of the associated keywords – ‘financial independence retire early’ and ‘FIRE movement’ and how their interest has changed over time. There is strong growth in interest in the past 12 months, which aligns with the growth in traffic shown in Chart 2 below.
The below chart shows how Aussie Firebug has grown over time – with big increases this year! This was produced using SEM Rush which is a great research tool.
