SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

G'day! (Foreword)

I really enjoy this community, it's so positive and the forum is so fully featured. Even with all of it's growth I feel like it's staying true to it's roots.

I'm always looking for ways to get more involved here in a way that my schedule allows so I thought I might have the occasional ramble. I'll try to talk about an interesting topic but I'll also sprinkle in a bit of just 'me' stuff.

So here is my first go of it, let me know what you guys think and whether you want to see more of it.

Why I Am Self-Employed (& What I Do)

When I was little I wanted to be a manager... Yeah, haha. It's what dad did when I was at that impressionable age and I had a pretty good mind for it. Well, I thought I did.

Turns out what I really had to do was to be an entrepreneur - to work for myself. I say 'had to' because I cannot see myself living any other way.

Around 2, maybe 3 years ago I realized I hated management and the way that the retail world operates. It crushed my soul and in five years I had had enough. I never wanted to see the inside of another retail organization again (my job wasn't really that bad, and my employer was decent overall).

So when Amy and I moved to Bendigo I spent a month stressing about the fact I would have to get another job, it made me sick to my stomache. I spent the time when I should have been looking for a job instead writing online and seeking other, alternative income sources.

Freelance Writing

Out of all of that writing I stumbled on the opportunity to do freelance writing. I focused on quality, word of mouth got around and now I have more clients than I can actually work for.

Freelance writing is not what I want to do though, it just pays the bills. Amy and I live pretty cheaply so I can pull in as little as $30-$45 a day and pay the bills (she works part time too and we try to 50/50 it).

Living cheaply and working less essentially buys me time to do what I actually want to do - to grow my own business and income streams.

What Do I Actually Want to Do?

I want to grow my own business, pursue my interests and earn a living by providing value to other people.

Essentially it's a bunch of projects that pull together to create a network of value. I have LearningSC2.com (which some of you may be familiar with), RLHighscore.com (gaming, money, personal development), YouTube (RLZiggyD & ZiggyDStarcraft), and my sporadic writing on InfoBarrel.

The idea is I can earn money doing what I love without charging anyone else anything. Provide free value and earn from it etc.

It's pretty hard work and kind of stressful trying to get everything to work together and trying to constantly improve the content I make but I really can't see myself doing anything else.

Goals

My eventual financial goal is to be be able to earn around $1000 a month without counting freelance work (up front pay). Then I can supplement the smaller amount of freelance stuff I do to have extra money to reinvest.

Last month I hit $180 on YT, though this was admittedly greatly affected by Diablo 3's release. Video report for June.

Gaming While Being Self-Employed

Considering I am doing most of this work in the world of gaming (it's what I love, can you blame me?) you would think that I am gaming more now than when I was working.

It's actually quite a bit less. Sometimes it's hard to justify to myself playing a game if it's not related to my work at all (sinking a few hours into an old RPG or playing some 2v2s for example). A lot of the games I am playing I plan on doing something with in the future. This doesn't mean that I don't enjoy them but Its definitely something that sits in my mind.

I also spend a lot of my 'free' time (usually while working on a freelance job) researching or interacting with various communities. If I have a bigger block of time ill try and write something or record something. I also need to try and balance family time too, hanging out with Amy not working or walking the dog etc. It's all a fine balancing act between getting upfront money, growing the 'business' and living a life.

Things will definitely improve/become easier once I reach my $1000/month. Until then I will just keep busting my ass, listening to feedback (it seriously does help, I'm serious) and reinvesting whatever I can.

To anyone else considering or attempting self-employment/gaming careers/esports careers:

Take in legit criticism regardless of how it is presented, ignore the people saying you wont be successful and keep up the kaizen.

Thanks for reading, let me know any feedback you have on this or anything else I do, I seriously appreciate it.