Why go for the Cents when you can go for the Dollars ?
I've read the post of @ph1102 about building a business on Hive and it gave me the idea for this post. You are probably not aware of it, but all of you here on hive are running a business!
Let's have a quick look at how the concept of Business is defined by Wikipedia:
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services) It is also any activity or enterprise entered into for profit.
When you are active on Hive and you get money from whatever you do, you are actually running a kind of business. It might be a good idea to try to get better at what you do and improve your business.
What is your business model?
What are you doing in order to get coins? Are you producing content? Are you curating? Are you delegating? Are you playing games for money? Are you trading tokens? Are you getting a return on your investments? I would say yes to all of them and there are even some others that I forgot. The quantity of available business models on hive is staggering.
If you take Splinterlands for example, the game itself offers plenty of business models. You can play to earn, you can stake tokens and earn rewards, you can rent your cards out, you can exploit land plots, you can trade cards and I probably forget others.
Whenever you run a business, you need to figure out what your cash cow is. What brings you the most return.
Figure out your main income source
I've been running an offline business for 12 years and one thing that I learned is that you should invest the most of your energy into the model that gives you the biggest profit. It would therefore be interesting to figure out for yourself what activity on hive provides you the most income. Also you should put in consideration how much time and resources you need to provide to get this income.
A good tool to figure what income source provides the most return for you is Hivestats
For many of us, content creation is probably the main income source for the first years on the chain. When content creation is your main income source, you will quickly realize the limits of it...
The limits of content creation
You can create only a limited amount of posts and if you create too many, you will probably not be able to keep the quality upright. In the long run, you will produce more posts but you will get less return.
Just creating content isn't really the answer. You also need to bring people to your posts. In order to do that, you need to invest time. Go to other peoples posts and comment. This is the very first principle of building relationships on hive. The chances are big that these people become aware of you and maybe they will check your blog as well.
Choose carefully where you leave your comments
The important thing here is to try to find the people that are on the same path than you are. For whales, content creation is peanuts because they make much more with curation rewards. They are not interested in spending hours in the comment sections. So when trying to pick people that you want to follow, you should aim for people who have a similar amount of hive power and have a similar way of trying to build their followership. These people will care their comments because they want you to go on coming to their post. They are also aware that they need to go to other people's post in order to achieve that.
Building relationships is very time consuming but it's definitely worth it. Not only it will bring life to your posts, it will also be motivating to exchange with like minded people and it might be the ingredient that lets you stay on the platform much longer.
To expand your content creation business, you will need time to build relationships and time to create and care for your posts. Your time is limited and therefore your income potential from content creation is physically limited.
Plan for the long run and scale your business
If you plan in the long run and instead of cashing out your income, you will actually scale your business. Of course, you need to pay for your life costs but you should keep as much as possible in HP or HBD. This will be the long term scaling tool for you. The more money you have staked, the more curation and interests you will generate. There will come a point when this income is higher than what you get from content creation. For a time, you might continue doing both until you reach a point where you realize that the staking part has become your main cash cow.
Again what I said before matters, you will find people on the same path than you and these people will also have more HP. Their votes will matter more and so you will get more income from your content creation when you have more HP yourself.
The key to real success on hive is to build your stake
Whatever you do on hive, as seen above, your HP matters. It will give you more weight, it will attract more powerful people and it will allow you to create cash flow. Money that you can use for other things. Maybe there is an opportunity in a game. If you have some cash, you can take this opportunity, otherwise not...
Maybe you have one day an idea for a product, an NFT or a token. Again you will need cash to get it started. Imagine, if you have a business that pays you cash on a daily basis and that allows you to introduce even more scaling opportunities? In order to get there, you need to build your stake and your income sources.
So next time, you get a nice payout from a post, don't cash it all out. Keep your HP and your HBD and let them work for you...
With @ph1102, I'm running the @liotes project.
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I can agree with everything, but maybe you should mention diversification too, I mean never invest everything in one business...
On one hand I agree that diversification is necessary but on the other hand I believe it's also not always a bad idea to push one thing more than 10 small ones. From an investment perspective I agree that diversification is important. From a business perspective, it's sometimes better to put a special effort on what rewards best and avoid splitting the energy in 10 different directions :-)
It's all about scalability... and it's not always "work hard", but work smart... The same principle is used in offline business... I was sharing my story a few days ago when I started my first business with just 100 empty CDs for sale... That was my "cash cow" at the moment as nobody was selling them in town... After a very short time I have doubled, tripled my "inventory"... The rest is history... But all begins at the same place, with an idea, a bit of money, and a lot of work... at the beginning... later you balance work with investing, and get more free time (in theory 😀)
I have the feeling that a lot of people on hive tend to work too hard. Meaning they create too many posts and don't spend enough time consolidating their work with more relations and more stake. While writing this article, I checked some metrics and I realised that my income from author rewards is about 20% of my total income on the chain... Things have changed :-)
Planning for the long term and reinvesting your income instead of withdrawing it is a smart and ambitious strategy. Keeping as much as possible in HP and HBD will allow you to generate more healing and interest over time - imagine how much you could earn in the future! So the next time I get a good payout, I'll definitely keep it and let my HP and HBD work for me.
I can't wait to see how my business grows!
!PIMP
You must be killin' it out here!
@edgerik just slapped you with 1.000 PIMP, @achim03.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/1 possible people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
It's not always possible to keep your money on the chain because you need to pay rent and food but in the long run, it's this money that will allow you to scale your income.
In other news....Where the heck have I been? I didn't know you guys had a Hive witness.
Anyways, voted Liotes!
Haha :-). We started less than two weeks ago. Thanks a lot for your vote. It's very much appreciated :-)
Oh man, my pleasure. Least I can do! Awesome to see more community based projects jumping into the witness role. Much needed here!
We've been sloth.buzz'in our way into the Witness program for the last year, and these Liotes come and chase us up in 2 weeks! I guess we need to up the community-based project marketing to get some more attention over our way :D
But, It is awesome to see more Witnesses springing up, sharing the load and taking Hive to the next level! Liotes are an awesome example of what communities can do here on Hive!
Pretty awesome what these 2 do. Always benefiting hive.
Thanks for reminding me. I just realized that somehow 😂.
Of course and it's my plan from the beginning. I'll try to never power down my HP and use it for other purposes like delegation and curation that'll benefit me more in the future. Let money work to get money 😂. As people around me say lately, "You need money to earn money"
!ALIVE
!LOL
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@achim03! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @ cursephantom. (5/20)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want, plus you can win Hive Power (2x 50 HP) and Alive Power (2x 500 AP) delegations (4 weeks), and Ecency Points (4x 50 EP), in our chat every day.
lolztoken.com
Remains to be seen.
Credit: reddit
@achim03, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of cursephantom
(3/10)
I would say they are not totally wrong about that. Especially nowadays, work doesn't pay that much anymore and money attracts money...
It is for sure a great business opportunity and to take advantage of higher passive returns, you need to reinvest. Great summary!
Our journeys on hive follow a same trajectory but at a different pace. The more our income is composed from passive income rather than content creation, the more scalable it will be.
Every kind of reward is meaningful to me right now including comments and curation rewards, lol
I’ve not really ventured into the gaming aspect so J should do so very soon
I’m just tryna have more money to invest into it
I joined Steemit in 2017, investing $100 cash, buying STEEM at $1.60. I was gifted a 100SP delegation early on and I leveraged that and built a name for myself, earning reliable upvotes and support. By posting daily and participating in games and contests, I slowly built my SP to over 1000. When HIVE forked I invested my STEEM (over time) into HIVE investments and they have done well. Today I have over 10K HP, posting and curating daily. All of this was done the slow way, posting and curating and commenting from spring of 2017 to today.
My tactic has been consistent posting, responding, curating, participation and maintenance. These all generate opportunities for income, even if just pennies at a time. Behind the scenes (while I work IRL and earn fiat or do other things), I receive upvotes, curation rewards, liquidity pool rewards, staking rewards, investment token rewards, interest payments, etc. This is all great, but it doesn't pay the bills.
I try to lessen the time investment while increasing income potential. Not lazy, just accounting per hour income: with current HIVE prices, even with all passive income, spending about three hours on HIVE daily, rewards are less than $4.00/hour. Who would take a job for $4.00/hour?
As it is, most people who are investing their valuable time are counting on HIVE to reach at least $1.00 or $2.00 at some point and will sell a portion of it for "back payments" of their previously invested and underpaid time. Rightfully so. Time and effort is valuable.
For people with expenses, it's an act of faith to invest more time - continuing to consistently post and curate, believing that a time will come when former efforts will pay out. But the market does it's own thing. As financial advisors say "Don't invest what you're not willing to loose." The one thing we never want to loose is TIME. I never considered myself a gambler, but I'm willing to bet on blockchain technology, even though the general assumption (back in 2017, 2018) was that STEEM/HIVE would be $20 - $40 by 2024. As financial advisors also say "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
I'm not owed any "future results" and I don't regret all the wonderful interactions here, however after six years of consistent effort, from a financial point of view, it's difficult to not feel a little ripped off. Not that I'm owed anything, but my belief in this blockchain has cost me a lot of time and I feel a little bit like a sucker chasing the invisible carrot of 10x HIVE. I'm still hopeful for 10x HIVE even now. Sort of like a slot machine, gotta pay out eventually.
Not to end on a sour note: it's important to remember had I invested this time on FB or Instagram or any other social media site, I wouldn't have anything to show for it! Something to keep in mind!
I'm reposting this comment as a post to compensate my time. :-)
Your comment is definitely worth a full post :-). I have invested a lot of time into this blockchain and crypto in general and fact is that only now it starts to impact my real life finances. I spent about 5 years building up and am slowly starting to reap the benefits. I believe it requires to reach a certain threshold and then the income starts to become interesting.
I did make a post about this topic and I took way too long to write it. :-)
https://ecency.com/hive-167922/@ironshield/is-hive-worth-it-financially
I am happy to hear this, had I been wiser with my investments, I may also be in a position for things to become interesting. Thankfully, I sold HIVE over $1 and invested in HBD savings, which is a safe investment at 20% apr. That's the most interesting investment in all six years of posting!
HBD interest are my main income sources as well :-)
Definitely a great post!
It's the beauty of hive, you can utilize in so many ways. When I look to my account, it's a combination of several methods as well. In the coming (now?) bullrun I'll see what will pay off best. That will be my biggest foxus in the future, of course still spreading a bit to manage risks.
What I like about hive is that even if Hive doesn't get much higher, I can generate a certain income without using my principal. And if one day the price explodes, well then I will be very happy ;-)
I have to agree again with you! By writing (and curating, but that's just a small amount so far), I can grow my stack which I can use for second layer projects or just stake it or.. That's indeed the beauty of Hive! :D
I definitely agree with the part about compounding your earnings for bigger future potential earnings! Of course, this isn't for everyone and I'm also totally prepared to let it all go to 0 since I consider HIVE just a side hobby for me.
For me it's also rather a hobby that takes a lot of time but I see it as a 50/50 wager. It can go to 0 or it can go the other way ;-)
I agree with what you said. Stake does matter and making sure to engage with others is important. I think I heard someone mention that the whales are focusing more on funding the stabilizer. So I don't rely on whales specifically. The votes are nice when you get them but it's up to us to stay involved.
I also heard that lol. We shouldn't rely too much on the ones at the top and go on helping each other building our stakes.
invest the most of your energy into the model that gives you the biggest profit
I think I really pick this golden word from you
Nice to be able to be of assistance ;-)
https://twitter.com/lee19389/status/1734545889791037913
#hive #posh
Nice post! I think one factor is also how much time we have to spend on a project/on Hive. Especially if we have day jobs, or family commitments, etc. I would like to spend more time reading more posts from different communities on Hive but sometimes I have to find a balance.
Time is definitely a key factor. I feel the same way. I would like to read more posts but time is never enough :-)
That's why I continue to grow and build my stake in Hive, and I will continue to do so until I need to!
The longer it's possible to build the stake without needing to withdraw, the faster we can grow. It can make a huge difference since compounding effects enter the picture.
What you say is a good rule. But, for example, blogging and commenting don't bring me the most profit/earnings on Hive, but still probably occupy most of my time on Hive quite often. I guess it's a kind of tribute I pay to Hive by engaging on its front ends and also helping build relationships. Unfortunately, as I went through my older posts, it's incredible how many people become inactive of the ones we used to interact with sometimes every day.
I would say that commenting and interacting are an essential part of the content creation business model. It's the work we provide to build relationships that in the long term pay out indirectly. I agree with you that there are plenty of people who have disapeared from hive and its a pitty...
I have to agree commenting/engagement are key however, it tends to be the most time-consuming also. (Finding worthy content/comments to reply to and thinking of a reply to those!)
It's the area I've been lacking in the most thus far in my Hive journey, too many other plates spinning. Sometimes it's nice to slow down, dive into the thick of it and find out what others are saying.
It's the same for me. I always seem to be lacking time and when I have to reduce some tasks, it's most of the time the commenting/engagement part that I skip.
I hear one of the best secrets in Hive right now is Hodling those SlothBuzz tokens, they're in such low supply that they just keep getting stronger! Time to go to the moon, or something, one slothly step at a time! Buzz Buzz!
I've started to add the tag to most of my posts ;-)
Slow and steady wins the race. We’re enjoying the sloth pace around Hive whilst we’re creating our buzz. There’s so many awesome projects on Hive we’re excited to continue growing along side them.