Rachel Willmer's Business Keynote talk at EuroPython 2016, Bilbao. Rachel talks about how she's survived and thrived in 20 years since she last has a salary. War stories from the 'dot-com' boom & bust; and a framework for turning your own technical skills into a 'build-the-life-you-love' business.

1. 2 0 Y E A R S W I T H O U T A
‘ P R O P E R J O B ’
R A C H E L W I L L M E R

2. T H I S T A L K I S F O R Y O U
I F …

3. W H O A M I T O
T A L K ?

5. W H A T C O U L D Y O U D O ?
Back To You…

6. P R O D U C T ?
• Ebook, Course, Online Training, Wordpress Plugin
• One-Off Revenue
• No Support
• Good for side-project or first project

7. S E R V I C E ?
• SAAS
• Recurring Revenue
• Support Costs
• Better when full-time

8. P U B L I S H
• Blog
• YouTube Vlog
• Podcast

9. H O W T O M O N E T I S E
• Sale of book
• Affiliate Commission
• Advertising
• Sponsorship
• Data Analytics

10. S O M E E X A M P L E S

11. Y O U C A N ’ T M A K E
M O N E Y B Y
W R I T I N G A B O O K
No?
Tell that to Sacha Grief &
Tom Coleman
$300k (in 18 months)
Self-published via Gumroad

12. Y O U C A N ’ T S T A R T A
S E R I O U S B U S I N E S S
A S A S O L O
F O U N D E R
• Peldi from Balsamic did.
• Annual profits > $2m

13. Y O U C A N ’ T D O
T H I S U N L E S S Y O U
L I V E I N T H E U S A
• Patio11 did it from Japan
• (by the way, he’s
amazing…)

14. I C A N ’ T D O I T
B E C A U S E …
• Yes. You can.
• Let me introduce you to
Jon Morrow.

15. J O N M O R R O W
• has Spinal Muscular
Atrophy
• cannot move from the
neck down
• runs smartblogger.com,
writes amazingly good
copy, makes a ton of
money, and has a lot of
fun!

16. A N D F I N A L L Y
• OK to START SMALL
• You Don’t LEARN Until You Start To Fail
• Don’t be Afraid to THINK BIG
• Choose B2B and Charge More
• Choose The Customers You Want
• Charge More (Yes Really!)
• and above all…
• START A MAILING LIST

17. A N Y
Q U E S T I O N S ?
rachel@willmer.org
Twitter: @rwillmer
luzme.com