096: The Problem With Having Only One Source of Income

A business relies on cash flow. In order for a business to survive, there has to be some source of income.

This can look like product sales, services, donations, investors, or other means of financing. The common denominator is that there is income coming in (see what I did there?).

The internet has brought about a lot of opportunities for businesses to thrive online, but it has challenges of its own. Hosting your business on someone else’s platform or building your income streams solely off of someone else’s business model is easy, but comes at a cost.

For example, many creators on YouTube have attempted to build businesses on the platform through ad revenue. A viewer sees an ad, the ad counts toward an impression, and the creator gets paid after a certain amount of impressions.

Yet over the last year, this type of monetization has become inconsistent at best. Creators blame the “adpocalypse” and that YouTube is to blame for their decrease in income from ad revenue. Is it really YouTube’s fault, though?

Today’s show will touch on the YouTube and platform controversies but we’ll also be talking about different ways to build toward having multiple sources of income, separating your various “income eggs” into different baskets, and keeping the future of your business in your own hands.