Observant readers of Seattle Bubble have noticed that the last few weeks have brought some fairly major changes—a new, cleaner layout for the blog, avatars in the comments, a redesign of the forum to match the blog, a fancy new sidebar section: “Recent Forum Posts,” the addition of tags to stories, and oh yeah… ads. This may lead readers to ask a few questions:
- Where does The Tim find the time to do all this?
- Why are you adding advertising now, after two years of being ad-free?
- Also, why do I have this strange urge to spend all my evenings watching “Short Circuit”?
Well, I don’t think I can really help you with that last one (let’s try to stay on-topic), but hopefully this post will sufficiently address the first two.
Here’s the short version:
As of January 28th, Tim Ellis is self-employed, and Seattle Bubble is one part of the plan to make enough money to pay the bills.
Here’s the long version:
I’ve had a growing list of projects mulling about in my head, and although I enjoy electrical engineering and had nothing against my employer, I have always had a strong desire to be self-employed. Given my present financial situation of zero debt, low living expenses (including no rent, as my wife and I are caretakers on an unused property), no kids (yet), and enough liquid savings to last over two years with zero income, it is hard to imagine a better time in my life to chase this particular dream. So, upon returning from our big giant road trip, I put in the two week notice at work, and as of January 28th, I am now an employee of Me, Myself, and I, Inc.
Although Seattle Bubble is not the entirety of my plan to generate an income, it is an important element. What this means is that you’ll be seeing some advertising, but you’ll also be seeing more frequent updates, additional content, and a quicker responses to your questions and concerns. I intend to do my best to keep Seattle Bubble interesting and relevant, even as the housing market finally comes down from its recent ridiculous highs. In addition to the advertising, I’m considering a few other ways of making some money off of Seattle Bubble, including sales of stickers and/or t-shirts, some sort of premium content (over and above what is already being offered—nothing currently free would become for-pay), and of course there’s always the big DONATE link at the top.
But that’s not all…
Now you may be asking: “So, if Seattle Bubble isn’t the whole plan, how do you intend to make enough money to get by in Seattle?”
That’s a great question. To answer that, I’d like to direct you to my brand new blog: Thatch Mound. Thatch Mound is the “parent company” that I have created to serve as an umbrella over all of the projects I’ll be working on. In the blog I’ll be giving a first-hand account of my experiences as I build the business from the ground up. I hope you’ll find it interesting enough to visit regularly and see how things unfold.
So that’s what’s going on, that’s the big secret. As for the ads on Seattle Bubble, I realize that they’re probably poorly targeted, and they may be a bit annoying (though I’ve tried to avoid making them invasive), but hopefully they don’t detract from the quality content that we work hard to bring you here. If they really bother you a lot, I recommend using Firefox with the Adblock Plus add-on. Ta-da, ads gone.
I appreciate any financial support you care to send via the donate option, and for those of you that have already generously donated, thank you. I’ll set you up with some free t-shirts or subscription content when those things are added in the near future.
Now go visit Thatch Mound, and tell all your entrepreneurial-minded friends about it, too.