Once you do, the options become a lot clearer.

If you had to make a decision on how a person should invest their spare time on a part time business (beyond their normal job) – assuming no specialized skills – would it be: 1) adsense and affiliate program sales by developing web traffic, 2) develop expertise for eventual consulting, 3) assembling an online store, or 4) none of the above?

I’ll be on the webcast, but I’d rather save everyone time by typing this out now:

Regarding barriers, how would you advise someone who doesn’t trust themselves with long-term professional responsibility?

That’s a summary that may require clarification. An explanation:
My skillset has been geared towards serving big business (Fortune 1000) for the past 5 years and it pays well. While I’d love to freelance, in months of reaching out to contacts, I’m consistently met with reluctance. It’s for a problem I can’t solve without starting a larger business. One person is not scalable and has no backup, and big business prefers to contract with consulting firms or body shops over an individual. Experiments suggest that smaller businesses who would benefit from my skills can’t afford my time, even at rates of $30 an hour.

I would change directions or start a larger business, except for one main barrier: I’m afraid of losing interest when people depend on me. I’m not convinced I can stick to running a business for longer than a year. It seems stressful and would require giving up my job. I’m good at what I do and I enjoy it, but freelancing or running a business means doing less of it in order to focus on tedious/stressful business overhead. Essentially, I don’t feel that I can trust myself with that kind of responsibility; employment at least provides a ‘boss.’

I could start on a different direction, but the same fear holds: I fear looking like a failure to my friends and family if I give up on such a project. I’d hate the tedious bits.

Excuse my rambling; such personal issues are hard to discuss rationally. Thanks for your time,
-Ben

Thanks for Week 1—very helpful information to get us thinking, and looking forward to Week 2.

I feel that I have knowledge based information / assets, but not sure how to package & price…will you cover more in Week 2 and beyond?

Keep up the great work!