It was not a pyramid scheme, not a get rich quickly trap that I fell into. It did not happen overnight and it wasn’t what people say ‘leisure’ as well. It required me to drop off a lot of friends, cancel trips, take a rain check on bar hopping because I had calls to attend. I would be lying if I said that I did not miss the fun. I would see my friend’s Instagram stories and wished I could be a part of that fun but then I brought myself back to reality, reminding myself why I do it.
If you are new to my blogs, hey, I am Moulshree. I am a product analyst by profession and a productivity fanatic at heart. I aim to retire myself by 30 and I welcome you to my journey. I want to buy my parents their dream house so that they don’t have to worry about mortgages. I write about productivity, no code tools and how you can also build passive incomes.
So if you made past the first two paragraphs, I do think you’re serious about making passive income too, why? Because it requires patience. It require for you to focus of things more than other people do, to go through the road not taken and seek discomfort.
Currently, I have 2 passive income streams. I do affiliate marketing and seel notion templates. I started using Notion 4 years ago and ventures intro the Notion template market pretty soon after that. I saw that a lot of individuals and organisations require Notion engineers that can build and maintain dashboards for them. At that time it was a pretty easy market but now we can see more and more people venturing into it.
I started with selling Notion templates, however I had very less luck. There were a lot of existing templates and I had a tough time making my name out of it. Then I did something different.
Whenever the market is saturated, you must know it is because people are copying that 1 person who got success out of it. They are copying each other. For you to get true success in that market is by venturing out and doing something that people are not doing.
That’s the mentality that has helped me to make money. In today’s time almost all ventures are saturated and for you to make money in them you’ll have to do something challenging, something that 99% of people are unwilling to do.
Because the Notion market was already full of templates, I started coding widgets. I have a Bachelors in Computer Engineering so I decided to make use of that degree and code Notion widgets. That instatly caught a lot of people’s eye. I got collaboration requests, people wanted to know how I did it and mainly, I got recognition in that pool of sellers.
The Start
So yes. I made passive income as a Notion creator and then as an affiliator too. I am working a 9–5 too which is my full time job as an analyst but I make sure to keep these things separate. I don’t give 50–50 attention to my passive ventures and full time job. I give my 100% to each. I don’t let my bad days at work affect my passive hustles and I don’t let me bad passive days affect my full time work. You should know when to keep these things aside and only then you can truly be complete.
To keep a track, I woke up earlier than I used to, I did research while travelling to office, I took out time from basic activities to do a thorough research before I set up a marketplace. I stretched my energy to reach its maximum potential.
My earning in my first month were only 12$ out of which 5$ were from a friend of mine who wanted to support me. Once again I was filled with doubt. I started selling free templates to gain trust of uses and build a solid customer base for me. Through this I not only gained trust of the people in my community but I was also able to set a brand expectation. I gained a good following on twitter and even Instagram. I worked my way forward to get in affiliated marketing and helping other creators make money as well.
I started sharing this journey on Medium which helped me start affiliate marketing too!
If you too want to sell Notion products:
- Research on the path you want to follow because there is a lot you can do with notion — from selling widgets to being a Notion consultant.
- See what you can add to the community and start building an audience.
- Learn from the people that are already in this business and seek for mentors.
- Setup an account on Gumroad or any marketplace where you can sell your products.
- Find a niche. Don’t just say “I make Notion templates”, say “I make Notion templates for productivity” or “I make Notion templates for small startups”. This will help you gain expertise in a particular sector.
If you want to seek other passive income options you can start with:
- Creating an online course or ebook: If you have expertise in a particular subject, you can create an online course or ebook and sell it to generate passive income.
- Affiliate marketing: By promoting other people’s products through affiliate marketing, you can earn a commission on sales as passive income.
- Participating in online surveys: Many market research companies pay individuals for their opinions, providing an easy way for you to earn passive income.
- Creating and selling digital products on platforms like Etsy or Creative Market: You can create and sell digital products such as design templates, stock photos, and digital art to generate passive income.
- Setting up and monetising a YouTube channel: By creating and uploading videos regularly to a YouTube channel, you can earn money through ads and sponsored content to generate passive income.
Thank you for reading my content. I create notion template for developers, students and productivity fanatics. Get to know about each new blog by subscribing to emails!
Check out my templates at: Gumroad and LemonSqueezy
Twitter: itsmoul
Product Hunt: Smoul
Linktree: itsmoul
