[0:00] what's up everybody how's it going in
[0:01] this video we are going to talk about
[0:04] the very exciting topic of how to make
[0:06] money as a software engineer and more
[0:09] specifically how to make passive income
[0:12] because passive income is all the rage
[0:14] these days now before I jump into the
[0:18] eight ideas on how to make passive
[0:20] income as a soft Ware engineer I do have
[0:23] a confession to make you see I lied to
[0:27] you I click baited you with this video
[0:30] title but you're gonna thank me I click
[0:33] baited you in the sense that these eight
[0:35] ideas that I'm about to share with you
[0:37] aren't actually passive income ideas
[0:40] they're more like active income ideas
[0:43] why are you going to thank me for this
[0:45] click bait well number one because it
[0:47] got you in this video but number two
[0:48] because I'm about to dispel a very
[0:52] important myth for you if anyone out
[0:55] there tries to tell you that you can
[0:57] genuinely make passive income as a
[0:58] software engineer they are most likely
[1:01] lying to you or have no idea what
[1:04] they're talking about Let Me Explain as
[1:06] I go through these eight ideas we'll
[1:08] start with the first way to make money
[1:10] as a software engineer and please hear
[1:12] me out on this one because I know some
[1:13] of you are gonna be like wait Clement
[1:14] this is not passive at all what are you
[1:16] talking about this is so obvious hear me
[1:18] out the first idea is to just get a
[1:22] normal job as a software engineer this
[1:25] is actually the easiest way to make
[1:28] money as a software engineer it's also
[1:30] likely the highest EV like expected
[1:34] value way of making money as a software
[1:36] engineer because there's very little
[1:39] risk and you're just very likely to make
[1:41] good money you're gonna be paid a lot
[1:43] and there is actually a little bit of
[1:47] passive income from just getting a job
[1:49] in the sense that by getting a job over
[1:53] time you will naturally get better at
[1:56] software engineering you will naturally
[1:57] get promoted which means that you will
[2:00] command much greater income as you get
[2:03] promoted and that means that in the
[2:06] future you might be making triple
[2:08] quadruple quintuple the amount of money
[2:11] that you would make right now for the
[2:14] same amount of work of actual time spent
[2:17] on the job and therefore there is a
[2:19] component of passive income in getting a
[2:22] normal job if you think about it that
[2:24] way so that's the first way to make
[2:26] money take it or leave it now let's jump
[2:29] into the second way to make money as a
[2:31] software engineer and that is to launch
[2:33] your own business probably with some
[2:36] tech components if you're a software
[2:38] engineer so this is something that I did
[2:40] as many of you know I launched my own
[2:42] company algo expert by the way if you're
[2:44] a software engineer preparing for your
[2:45] technical interviews do check out my
[2:47] company algo expert go to algoexport.io
[2:48] and use a promo code clemclm for a
[2:50] discount on the platform and so the cool
[2:52] thing about launching your own company
[2:54] is that it probably the best way to make
[2:59] the most amount of money
[3:01] however that comes with two big caveats
[3:04] number one it's not at all guaranteed it
[3:06] gets like it's probably very likely that
[3:09] you will fail at launching your own
[3:11] company and succeeding at it and I'm not
[3:13] saying this to to downplay your efforts
[3:16] or your abilities it's just
[3:17] statistically the truth but then second
[3:19] of all it is the opposite of passive
[3:21] income there's nothing passive about
[3:24] launching your own company I've been
[3:25] working on algo expert for almost six
[3:27] years now and I can tell you that the
[3:29] first five years had nothing passive
[3:32] about them it was only active work
[3:35] active income working 24 7 and now
[3:38] admittedly now that the company has
[3:40] reached a certain level of success a
[3:42] certain level of maturity I have been
[3:45] able to reap the the fruits of my labor
[3:47] a little bit over the last 10 months or
[3:49] so I've been able to kind of really like
[3:51] decompress and relax but even so I still
[3:55] have this constant burden of I am
[3:57] responsible for this company if
[3:59] something goes bad it's on me I shoulder
[4:02] that responsibility and that makes it
[4:05] really not passive at the end of the day
[4:07] it's still very much active a little bit
[4:10] different than just having a full-time
[4:12] job where you truly must work every
[4:16] single day like now I'm able to not work
[4:18] every single day and I'm still able to
[4:20] make passive money from that point of
[4:22] view but overall at a macro level still
[4:25] active and during the beginning
[4:26] extremely active okay okay you really
[4:30] want to hear a passive income idea okay
[4:32] third idea this one is a little bit more
[4:35] passive it's launch a YouTube channel
[4:37] now again unfortunately I must give you
[4:41] the brutal truth which is that launching
[4:44] and growing a YouTube channel is
[4:46] actually not that passive it's actually
[4:48] very active it takes a lot of work to
[4:52] grow a YouTube channel into something
[4:54] that actually makes you a lot of money
[4:56] for example my channel took me quite a
[4:59] lot of work and time and effort to grow
[5:02] to 50 000 100 200 000 subscribers and
[5:05] now 500 or almost 500 000. during the
[5:08] first couple of years on YouTube I was
[5:09] posting three videos a week that takes a
[5:12] huge amount of work if you've never done
[5:14] it trust me it takes a huge amount of
[5:17] work and at the beginning you're not
[5:19] making any money and because you need to
[5:22] put in all this work and you need to
[5:24] consistently put in that work it's just
[5:26] not that Passive A admittedly once you
[5:30] reach a certain threshold you start to
[5:33] have older videos that you truly never
[5:36] have to work on again because they're
[5:37] just there on YouTube and they
[5:40] consistently bring in views which
[5:41] therefore consistently brings in income
[5:43] and that is admittedly passive but you
[5:46] have to realize that the work to get
[5:49] those videos up and successful in the
[5:52] first place is Super Active and if you
[5:55] really want to sustain this over a long
[5:57] period of time you have to keep pumping
[5:59] out videos even what I'm doing right now
[6:01] here filming this video this is very
[6:04] much active work
[6:05] that being said of all the ideas that
[6:08] I'm sharing here in this video I do
[6:10] think that starting a YouTube channel is
[6:12] the one that maybe has the most
[6:15] potential for passive income you know
[6:18] once you reach a certain threshold idea
[6:20] number four is actually very similar to
[6:23] starting a YouTube channel but with one
[6:25] kind of big difference it's launching a
[6:29] newsletter a tech newsletter and uh this
[6:32] is something that you know is very
[6:33] similar to YouTube you have to grow an
[6:34] audience you have to put in a ton of
[6:36] work especially at the beginning to grow
[6:38] that audience but the main difference
[6:41] with YouTube is that as far as I know it
[6:44] is actually less passive income than
[6:47] YouTube in the sense that with YouTube
[6:50] Once you have a video up
[6:52] it is on YouTube permanently unless you
[6:54] choose to take it down and so it will
[6:56] truly generate Revenue forever so long
[6:58] as it gets views whereas a newsletter
[7:01] you will only make money so long as you
[7:04] have subscribers and the second that you
[7:06] stop pumping out you know consistent
[7:09] content well you're gonna lose
[7:11] subscribers at least that's how I
[7:13] presume that it works and so therefore I
[7:16] think that it's a lot more active work
[7:18] and active income still a great way to
[7:21] make money you know side money or main
[7:23] you know full-time money but not passive
[7:27] income idea number five this one
[7:29] actually also has a lot of potential for
[7:32] for truly leading to passive income like
[7:34] the YouTube channel but still takes a
[7:36] lot of work and effort at the beginning
[7:38] and it's the idea of launching some sort
[7:41] of
[7:42] small one-time product whether it be an
[7:47] app on your phone or a Chrome extension
[7:50] or maybe a simple SAS product that
[7:54] doesn't require a lot of Maintenance and
[7:57] having that basically be you know a huge
[8:00] upfront investment of time and effort
[8:02] and then kind of Perpetual money from
[8:04] that
[8:05] now the problem with this idea is that
[8:07] it's very hard to actually do that like
[8:09] it's very hard to create you know the
[8:11] next Flappy Bird that's going to make
[8:13] millions of dollars on the app store and
[8:15] then you don't have to do anything once
[8:17] you've launched it or you know the next
[8:19] I don't know whatever Chrome extension
[8:21] is super easy to make and generates a
[8:23] ton of Revenue most of these things
[8:26] ultimately require like a lot of effort
[8:29] even to maintain or they just will never
[8:31] take off and never make you a lot of
[8:33] money but it is still an option perhaps
[8:37] an option that you would want to
[8:38] consider to make money on the side or as
[8:41] your primary gig now the sixth idea to
[8:44] make money as a software engineer this
[8:46] one is another one that actually does
[8:47] have potential to be truly passive
[8:49] income it's to create a course so some
[8:53] sort of educational content in Tech in
[8:56] software engineering now here I do want
[8:58] to specify when I say a course I mean
[9:01] truly just a course something fairly
[9:04] simple like we host did on a website
[9:06] like teachable so it's just video
[9:08] content that you create once so big
[9:11] upfront investment of time and effort
[9:13] and then you never have to maintain it
[9:16] again I'm not talking about something
[9:18] like my company algo expert algo experts
[9:21] some people think that it's just a
[9:23] course no audio expert is a platform
[9:26] there's tons of work that goes into algo
[9:29] expert to maintain it to have all the
[9:33] functionality that we have on the
[9:34] platform you know there's tons of
[9:35] engineering marketing blah blah it's not
[9:38] you know just a course that you create
[9:40] once and that then you're done you never
[9:42] have to work on it again so if you do do
[9:44] just a course that has the potential for
[9:47] that passive income the only caveat is
[9:50] that it's going to be very difficult to
[9:52] actually get people to buy your course
[9:54] unless you have a lot of reach or a lot
[9:56] of you know big audience so kind of go
[9:59] back to point number three or four
[10:00] create a YouTube channel or a newsletter
[10:03] and grow an audience and then sell them
[10:05] of course then the other problem with
[10:07] creating a course is that the industry
[10:10] is very saturated like for example let's
[10:12] say you want to create a react course
[10:15] learn react or learn you know go Lang
[10:18] there's a lot of content on how to learn
[10:21] golang or how to learn to react there
[10:22] are a lot of courses there are a lot of
[10:24] platforms like much more developed
[10:27] platforms like programming expert our
[10:29] company that teaches you you know how to
[10:30] code in Python and gives you a platform
[10:32] where you can run code and all that so
[10:34] it's very difficult to actually
[10:36] successfully launch such a course but
[10:39] it's an idea especially if you have a
[10:42] lot of Niche experience or expertise
[10:44] that isn't covered in other courses out
[10:48] there that's for you to know and for the
[10:50] rest of us to find out I guess once you
[10:52] create your next big course idea number
[10:55] seven seven is to do Consulting now I
[10:59] will say this is not something that I
[11:01] have any experience in and it's also not
[11:03] something that strikes me as passive at
[11:05] all probably the least passive because
[11:07] first of all you have to consistently do
[11:10] the Consulting work you have to
[11:12] consistently be hired as a consultant as
[11:15] a tech consultant but also with
[11:17] Consulting you are literally selling
[11:19] your time like your time is your service
[11:22] your time and your experience so you
[11:25] cannot just like at least create some
[11:27] sort of product that requires
[11:29] maintenance but that at least you know
[11:30] creates money while you're sleeping here
[11:33] you actually have to be you know in the
[11:35] room or on the zoom call with people
[11:37] giving them Consulting advice still
[11:40] worth you know sharing is an idea and
[11:43] perhaps you want to go down the route of
[11:44] actually having a team creating a
[11:46] Consulting agency but then you're really
[11:48] creating a business anyway still thought
[11:51] I'd mention that and now we arrive at
[11:52] the eighth and final idea last but not
[11:55] least this one is not going to be
[11:56] passive unfortunately it is just to do
[11:59] contract work or freelance work again
[12:01] something that I've never done so I
[12:02] don't really have experience there but I
[12:04] know that a lot of people do it and it's
[12:07] just worth mentioning it's certainly
[12:09] something that you can do on the side
[12:10] something that can give you supplemental
[12:13] income just not really passive and of
[12:16] course the better you get at it the more
[12:18] experience you have and you know this
[12:21] goes back to getting a real job and
[12:22] getting promoted and all that the more
[12:24] you can charge on this or the quicker
[12:26] you can complete projects and therefore
[12:28] depending on how you view it the more
[12:31] you increase your passive income in the
[12:34] sense of you know I command more dollars
[12:36] per hour than I used to for the same
[12:38] amount of work so that's idea number
[12:41] eight that wraps up my eight ideas I
[12:44] know I know perhaps I made some of you
[12:46] sad telling you that there is no true
[12:48] passive income because genuinely there
[12:51] just isn't if there were I think
[12:53] everybody would be doing it but some of
[12:55] these ideas do have the potential to
[12:57] lead to some sort of passive income you
[13:00] know with a lot of active work at the
[13:02] beginning and then maybe progressively
[13:03] less active work let me know what you
[13:05] thought about them in the comments below
[13:07] let me know if I missed something I
[13:09] tried to think long and hard whether or
[13:11] not I missed like a 9th or tenth option
[13:14] I genuinely don't think I did let me
[13:17] know in the comments if I did let us all
[13:18] know it can help everybody reading the
[13:21] comments don't forget to smash the like
[13:22] button if you enjoyed the video
[13:23] subscribe to the channel if you haven't
[13:24] already follow me on LinkedIn and
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[13:27] content Instagram if you like pictures
[13:29] and I will see you in the next video