8 Passive Income Ideas For Software Engineers

[00:00] what's up everybody how's it going in

[00:01] this video we are going to talk about

[00:04] the very exciting topic of how to make

[00:06] money as a software engineer and more

[00:09] specifically how to make passive income

[00:12] because passive income is all the rage

[00:14] these days now before I jump into the

[00:18] eight ideas on how to make passive

[00:20] income as a soft Ware engineer I do have

[00:23] a confession to make you see I lied to

[00:27] you I click baited you with this video

[00:30] title but you're gonna thank me I click

[00:33] baited you in the sense that these eight

[00:35] ideas that I'm about to share with you

[00:37] aren't actually passive income ideas

[00:40] they're more like active income ideas

[00:43] why are you going to thank me for this

[00:45] click bait well number one because it

[00:47] got you in this video but number two

[00:48] because I'm about to dispel a very

[00:52] important myth for you if anyone out

[00:55] there tries to tell you that you can

[00:57] genuinely make passive income as a

[00:58] software engineer they are most likely

[01:01] lying to you or have no idea what

[01:04] they're talking about Let Me Explain as

[01:06] I go through these eight ideas we'll

[01:08] start with the first way to make money

[01:10] as a software engineer and please hear

[01:12] me out on this one because I know some

[01:13] of you are gonna be like wait Clement

[01:14] this is not passive at all what are you

[01:16] talking about this is so obvious hear me

[01:18] out the first idea is to just get a

[01:22] normal job as a software engineer this

[01:25] is actually the easiest way to make

[01:28] money as a software engineer it's also

[01:30] likely the highest EV like expected

[01:34] value way of making money as a software

[01:36] engineer because there's very little

[01:39] risk and you're just very likely to make

[01:41] good money you're gonna be paid a lot

[01:43] and there is actually a little bit of

[01:47] passive income from just getting a job

[01:49] in the sense that by getting a job over

[01:53] time you will naturally get better at

[01:56] software engineering you will naturally

[01:57] get promoted which means that you will

[02:00] command much greater income as you get

[02:03] promoted and that means that in the

[02:06] future you might be making triple

[02:08] quadruple quintuple the amount of money

[02:11] that you would make right now for the

[02:14] same amount of work of actual time spent

[02:17] on the job and therefore there is a

[02:19] component of passive income in getting a

[02:22] normal job if you think about it that

[02:24] way so that's the first way to make

[02:26] money take it or leave it now let's jump

[02:29] into the second way to make money as a

[02:31] software engineer and that is to launch

[02:33] your own business probably with some

[02:36] tech components if you're a software

[02:38] engineer so this is something that I did

[02:40] as many of you know I launched my own

[02:42] company algo expert by the way if you're

[02:44] a software engineer preparing for your

[02:45] technical interviews do check out my

[02:47] company algo expert go to algoexport.io

[02:48] and use a promo code clemclm for a

[02:50] discount on the platform and so the cool

[02:52] thing about launching your own company

[02:54] is that it probably the best way to make

[02:59] the most amount of money

[03:01] however that comes with two big caveats

[03:04] number one it's not at all guaranteed it

[03:06] gets like it's probably very likely that

[03:09] you will fail at launching your own

[03:11] company and succeeding at it and I'm not

[03:13] saying this to to downplay your efforts

[03:16] or your abilities it's just

[03:17] statistically the truth but then second

[03:19] of all it is the opposite of passive

[03:21] income there's nothing passive about

[03:24] launching your own company I've been

[03:25] working on algo expert for almost six

[03:27] years now and I can tell you that the

[03:29] first five years had nothing passive

[03:32] about them it was only active work

[03:35] active income working 24 7 and now

[03:38] admittedly now that the company has

[03:40] reached a certain level of success a

[03:42] certain level of maturity I have been

[03:45] able to reap the the fruits of my labor

[03:47] a little bit over the last 10 months or

[03:49] so I've been able to kind of really like

[03:51] decompress and relax but even so I still

[03:55] have this constant burden of I am

[03:57] responsible for this company if

[03:59] something goes bad it's on me I shoulder

[04:02] that responsibility and that makes it

[04:05] really not passive at the end of the day

[04:07] it's still very much active a little bit

[04:10] different than just having a full-time

[04:12] job where you truly must work every

[04:16] single day like now I'm able to not work

[04:18] every single day and I'm still able to

[04:20] make passive money from that point of

[04:22] view but overall at a macro level still

[04:25] active and during the beginning

[04:26] extremely active okay okay you really

[04:30] want to hear a passive income idea okay

[04:32] third idea this one is a little bit more

[04:35] passive it's launch a YouTube channel

[04:37] now again unfortunately I must give you

[04:41] the brutal truth which is that launching

[04:44] and growing a YouTube channel is

[04:46] actually not that passive it's actually

[04:48] very active it takes a lot of work to

[04:52] grow a YouTube channel into something

[04:54] that actually makes you a lot of money

[04:56] for example my channel took me quite a

[04:59] lot of work and time and effort to grow

[05:02] to 50 000 100 200 000 subscribers and

[05:05] now 500 or almost 500 000. during the

[05:08] first couple of years on YouTube I was

[05:09] posting three videos a week that takes a

[05:12] huge amount of work if you've never done

[05:14] it trust me it takes a huge amount of

[05:17] work and at the beginning you're not

[05:19] making any money and because you need to

[05:22] put in all this work and you need to

[05:24] consistently put in that work it's just

[05:26] not that Passive A admittedly once you

[05:30] reach a certain threshold you start to

[05:33] have older videos that you truly never

[05:36] have to work on again because they're

[05:37] just there on YouTube and they

[05:40] consistently bring in views which

[05:41] therefore consistently brings in income

[05:43] and that is admittedly passive but you

[05:46] have to realize that the work to get

[05:49] those videos up and successful in the

[05:52] first place is Super Active and if you

[05:55] really want to sustain this over a long

[05:57] period of time you have to keep pumping

[05:59] out videos even what I'm doing right now

[06:01] here filming this video this is very

[06:04] much active work

[06:05] that being said of all the ideas that

[06:08] I'm sharing here in this video I do

[06:10] think that starting a YouTube channel is

[06:12] the one that maybe has the most

[06:15] potential for passive income you know

[06:18] once you reach a certain threshold idea

[06:20] number four is actually very similar to

[06:23] starting a YouTube channel but with one

[06:25] kind of big difference it's launching a

[06:29] newsletter a tech newsletter and uh this

[06:32] is something that you know is very

[06:33] similar to YouTube you have to grow an

[06:34] audience you have to put in a ton of

[06:36] work especially at the beginning to grow

[06:38] that audience but the main difference

[06:41] with YouTube is that as far as I know it

[06:44] is actually less passive income than

[06:47] YouTube in the sense that with YouTube

[06:50] Once you have a video up

[06:52] it is on YouTube permanently unless you

[06:54] choose to take it down and so it will

[06:56] truly generate Revenue forever so long

[06:58] as it gets views whereas a newsletter

[07:01] you will only make money so long as you

[07:04] have subscribers and the second that you

[07:06] stop pumping out you know consistent

[07:09] content well you're gonna lose

[07:11] subscribers at least that's how I

[07:13] presume that it works and so therefore I

[07:16] think that it's a lot more active work

[07:18] and active income still a great way to

[07:21] make money you know side money or main

[07:23] you know full-time money but not passive

[07:27] income idea number five this one

[07:29] actually also has a lot of potential for

[07:32] for truly leading to passive income like

[07:34] the YouTube channel but still takes a

[07:36] lot of work and effort at the beginning

[07:38] and it's the idea of launching some sort

[07:41] of

[07:42] small one-time product whether it be an

[07:47] app on your phone or a Chrome extension

[07:50] or maybe a simple SAS product that

[07:54] doesn't require a lot of Maintenance and

[07:57] having that basically be you know a huge

[08:00] upfront investment of time and effort

[08:02] and then kind of Perpetual money from

[08:04] that

[08:05] now the problem with this idea is that

[08:07] it's very hard to actually do that like

[08:09] it's very hard to create you know the

[08:11] next Flappy Bird that's going to make

[08:13] millions of dollars on the app store and

[08:15] then you don't have to do anything once

[08:17] you've launched it or you know the next

[08:19] I don't know whatever Chrome extension

[08:21] is super easy to make and generates a

[08:23] ton of Revenue most of these things

[08:26] ultimately require like a lot of effort

[08:29] even to maintain or they just will never

[08:31] take off and never make you a lot of

[08:33] money but it is still an option perhaps

[08:37] an option that you would want to

[08:38] consider to make money on the side or as

[08:41] your primary gig now the sixth idea to

[08:44] make money as a software engineer this

[08:46] one is another one that actually does

[08:47] have potential to be truly passive

[08:49] income it's to create a course so some

[08:53] sort of educational content in Tech in

[08:56] software engineering now here I do want

[08:58] to specify when I say a course I mean

[09:01] truly just a course something fairly

[09:04] simple like we host did on a website

[09:06] like teachable so it's just video

[09:08] content that you create once so big

[09:11] upfront investment of time and effort

[09:13] and then you never have to maintain it

[09:16] again I'm not talking about something

[09:18] like my company algo expert algo experts

[09:21] some people think that it's just a

[09:23] course no audio expert is a platform

[09:26] there's tons of work that goes into algo

[09:29] expert to maintain it to have all the

[09:33] functionality that we have on the

[09:34] platform you know there's tons of

[09:35] engineering marketing blah blah it's not

[09:38] you know just a course that you create

[09:40] once and that then you're done you never

[09:42] have to work on it again so if you do do

[09:44] just a course that has the potential for

[09:47] that passive income the only caveat is

[09:50] that it's going to be very difficult to

[09:52] actually get people to buy your course

[09:54] unless you have a lot of reach or a lot

[09:56] of you know big audience so kind of go

[09:59] 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

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[13:29] and I will see you in the next video