When we're at a conference or something, it's no problem: people come up to my kids and tell them they have a cool father who's also a plain old good guy.

 

They like that. (As do I.)

 

But in other settings, like with their peers, it's not so simple. They invariably get:

 

..."What does your father do for a living?"

And who the heck knows how to answer?

"Author" kind of works, but I've written only one book in the past nine years (though quite a few before that).

 

"Affiliate marketer"? Yeah, their peers will understand that.

"Podcast host"? That's just sad. That sounds like "unemployed."

"Historian"? Maybe, but that conjures up images of old men in museums.

So who knows.

 

A lot of people who make their livings online have the same problem. Nobody quite understands what they do, or it sounds weird or -- to the cynical -- somehow shady.

 

There's nothing wrong with being a domain broker, for example, but nobody knows what that is, and it sounds like something you might get arrested for.

 

There's nothing wrong with doing arbitrage, but even fewer know what that is.

 

You get the idea.

 

"I run an online store" is easy to understand and seems normal to most people. It doesn't require half an hour to explain.

 

That is probably the most common form of online business, much more common than my own model.

 

But because of tech advances over the past couple of years, it's actually far easier to make one of these work for yourself than ever before.

 

Not to mention: most people are vaguely aware that the tech we're talking about here exists, but not one in 100,000 knows how to leverage it to build successful stores.

 

But you will:

 

 

Tom Woods