This is a struggle that almost all web development/affiliate marketing start-up/wannabes struggle with.  You need the short-term money to keep the bills paid, but you need to set aside some time to reach those long term goals that will get you the big dollars.

For most just getting started, the short term money comes in the form of a full or part-time job.  You work all day, then come home at night and on weekends and bang out those long-term projects.  The benefit is that your short-term income is stable.  You get a steady paycheck, the wife is happy, and the internet connection is paid for.  The bad side is that a full-time job takes up most of your working time.  By the time you finish work, get home, have dinner, spend time with the wife/kids/girlfriend/parents/whatever, you are exhausted and might be lucky to get an hour or so in on your own projects before sleep is a necessity in order to function at your job.  At this rate, it can take forever to finish projects of any moderate complexity and often times the goal is never reached.

For those like myself, my short term income comes from building websites for clients.  The benefit is that I am working on what I enjoy doing, it pays pretty well (if you have the right clients) and it allows a flexible schedule so I can try to work in my own projects on occasion.  The down side is that, when busy, it takes up much more time than a 9 to 5 job so I may sometimes go weeks or possibly months without having time to work on my own projects.

Ideally, you want to find something that takes up very little time, makes pretty good money (enough to live on) and is sustainable.  If you are good at it, affiliate marketing fits this bill.  This is where some of the bigger names online make their short-term income to pay the bills while they work on larger projects that make them the big dollars.  The down side to this is complacency.  If you find something that only requires a couple of hours work each day, makes enough money to pay your bills plus some, and is sustainable why would you put in all that work on something big that might or might not pay off one day?  Why not kick back and enjoy your new-found leisure?

My goals is to build sustainable online businesses that don’t depend on search engines or PPC.  However, I am beginning to dabble more into affiliate marketing to see if I can make enough to keep my business running while also freeing up the time I need to work on my projects.  Keep reading in the next months and years and we’ll see…