This post was written by Derek.

Do you often think about passive income? Do you realize that with a small initial investment, you could start your own passive income stream as soon as tomorrow? What’s holding you back? Is it lack of information? Lack of income? Or, lack of ambition? Whatever the excuse, you may want to get moving on your dream soon, because life will not slow down for you. Hopefully this story will be an inspiration.

A Young Entrepreneur

A young man from Omaha, Nebraska always had an entrepreneurial spirit. When he was only 13, he made quite a lot of money by simply selling golf balls, stamps, and delivering news papers. He made enough money, in fact, that he was able to purchase a 40 acre plot of land at age 14, which he then rented to the local farmers in the area. Soon after this venture, he and a buddy purchased a used pinball machine for $25 and set it up in the local barbershop to collect money from the waiting customers. Soon, they had 26 pinball machines in shops all over the town. This young man went on to become one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. His name, as you may have guessed by now, is Warren Buffett.

Passive Income

Which of Warren’s ventures described above are a form of passive income? Since the sales jobs required him to be present to earn his money, these are not considered passive. The land that he purchased was certainly passive! Once he purchased it and rented it to the farmers, he didn’t have to do a thing! I don’t think there’s much else that’s more passive than that. Also, after the pinball machine was placed in the barbershop, all he and his buddy had to do was to collect the money out of the machine! That’s sounds pretty passive to me as well!

What Can You Do For Passive Income?

In order to begin a passive income stream of your own, you will either have to invest a considerable amount of time, money, or both. If you are willing to put in the initial time and investment, but don’t know what to pursue, think about what you enjoy doing.

What is your hobby? What is it that you like to do and are pretty good at? Perhaps you really enjoy taking pictures. You could turn your hobby into a one-man show type of business, but most likely, you will become busy and over-worked, causing you to lose the joy of the hobby you once loved. Or, you could turn this hobby into a money-making passive income machine!

Picture Taking Turned Passive!

• Begin building a clientele for your photography business
• Once you build your clients to a substantial level (more than you can handle or want), begin training other photographers how to be in business for themselves (somewhat like a franchise). You will provide the clients, and will always receive a cut of the profits.
• Since the other photographers will not be your employees, you will not have to pay them benefits or become a corporation, but you will receive monetary benefits for merely referring clients to them.
• The new photographers will be happy because they will have an instant business with very little effort!

This is a fairly simplistic example, but it can really work! If you currently have a business where you feel that you’re the go-to-guy (or girl) for everything, all you need to do is systematize the work. Make notes about how each process is performed and provide them to each of you employees. This way, there will be no repeated questions and your time will be yours again. Try it! It can really transform your full-time business into a passive venture in no-time.