These stories highlight the fundamental problem with the popularized "passive income" approach: the goal is usually to support a lifestyle, not to provide value to customers. This can easily result in a huge disconnect between the business owner and the realities of the business. Unfortunately, if you don't handle your business, it's bound to handle you.
It is absolutely possible to run a sustainable, highly-profitable business without working 16 hours a day. But there are relatively few businesses that will run themselves completely, and people who want to spend the vast majority of their income every month probably lack many of the traits of successful business owners to begin with.
> Unfortunately, if you don't handle your business, it's bound to handle you.
That is what many people who get into affiliate marketing don't understand. The most successful affiliates I know have 5-20 people working for them and have built a business around what they do. Most solo affiliates spend huge amounts of time trying to figure out how to do things and/or keep ahead of the churn.
Exactly, its also the biggest flaw i found in Tim Ferris' 4 Hour work week. If you dont care for your business, others will overtake you and your business is slowly going to die.
Yeah, when I was working on affiliate websites, I created a web framework and then paid people to be researchers for me. I made about $3K over 4 months for each $250 I invested into people doing research for me.
I think about my business all the time. I love my customers and spend a lot of time talking to them. I do this because I love my business. I just happened to have built a business with a high degree of automation. It's also successful, growing and I'm working on scaling it even more. So I suppose I'm a counter example?
If you are thinking about your business all the time, talk to customers on a regular basis and are actively working to scale what you have, you are materially participating in the operation of a business and by definition are not generating passive income. The fact that you've automated many business processes is a good thing, but that alone doesn't mean your income is passive in nature.
Incidentally, the folks promoting the fairy tale notion of "passive income" discussed here have hijacked the term, which is well-established in the contexts of finance, accounting and tax. Virtually none of the businesses these folks hold up as passive income success stories would be considered sources of passive income for accounting or tax purposes.
It is absolutely possible to run a sustainable, highly-profitable business without working 16 hours a day. But there are relatively few businesses that will run themselves completely, and people who want to spend the vast majority of their income every month probably lack many of the traits of successful business owners to begin with.