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The Passive Income Meetup

Passive income. Much has been said about the topic. And we’ve seen a lot of interest in it as well. But there is quite some ambiguity on how it is actually acquired and what it exactly is. If you ask 10 people about what passive income is, you’ll get 10 different answers.

So let’s ask Google! The simplest definition of passive income we found is: “Income from activities in which a person is not actively involved.” This is a useful definition, but it’s unclear what kind of activities generate passive income. Searching further, the most popular activities to generate passive income seem to be affiliate marketing, renting out property, selling ebooks and online courses, advertisement money on YouTube, royalties on intellectual property (e.g. music and videos), peer-to-peer lending, and dividends/yields from investments in stocks or bonds.

In April 2019, Enter Network hosted a meetup on Passive Income. And despite the fact we didn’t clarify on what type of passive income we would focus during the meetup, there was a great level of interest: a record number of people signed up to join. Clearly, people are interested in money, especially if limited activity is required to obtain it. Plus, people are seeking means to effectively (and excitingly) manage their money, especially with close to zero interest rates on your savings account. 

So whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, passive income is a hot topic. But — as the speaker at our meetup also empathized — the passive part of the concept is not that passive. Earning money without doing anything is a myth. And that might have disappointed the visitors that came to look for the golden bullet…

 

Who spoke at the passive income meetup and what did he discuss?

As is tradition at Enter Network’s meetups (see our meetup page here), we have one or two speakers discussing the topic at hand. For our meetup on passive income, Matthijs Roumen held a presentation, who is Strategy Director at M2Media and works for clients like Nintendo, VGZ Zorgverzekering, and Schiphol Airport. He has been experimenting with passive income since years, and now runs several well-running side projects that generate ‘passive’ income streams.

One of Matthijs’ projects is https://www.alle-handbagage-afmetingen.nl/, which generates passive income via affiliate marketing. During his insightful presentation, Matthijs enthusiastically told us about:

  • How the Pareto principle and Parkinson’s Law apply to generating passive income, and how these help to minimize your waste of time and money;
  • His strategy and planning of how he effectively sets up his side projects;
  • How to make (some) money with side projects;
  • How much money he made;
  • How to measure, analyze and optimize your proposition and potential income;
  • And some of his failures and learnings.

Matthijs showed that fully ‘passive’ income is a myth and that setting it up takes a lot of time. He stressed to not just do side projects for the cold hard cash. Earn money, but keep it fun.

Or, in Matthijs’ words:

Just fucking do it. Fail to win. Do it for fun.

 

Questions from the Enter Network audience

As always, after a presentation at our meetups, the audience has the opportunity to ask questions. There were more questions than we had with previous meetups. Many audience members were taking notes or made pictures of the slides. Some people were surprised how less Matthijs focused on making a huge (million dollar) income stream out of his side project(s), while others appreciated his enthusiastic and non-caring approach to start new side projects once the boredom kicks in.

Whatever the feeling was, this meetup excited many of our attendees to experiment with side projects and passive income streams. With Enter Network, we plan to organize a second meetup on the topic later in 2019 and are curious to see/hear who has succeeded in setting up a passive income stream. Make sure to check out our meetup page for our latest events.

 

Passive Income Presentation Slides

In case you have missed the meetup, Matthijs is doing everything open source. He shares all of his data (including income) from his websites here. Plus, he has published the slides he used for this meetup. Find them here.

 

Venue and sponsor of the Passive Income Meetup

This meetup’s location: Dot Slash

We organized this meetup at the wonderful event room of ./ (pronounced as Dotslash) in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The name is based on a standard computer command that indicates a starting point, and your current position. Dotslash is located at Europalaan 100 in Kanaleneiland Zuid, and offers office spaces and co-working opportunities for start-ups, scale-ups and corporates in the Utrecht area.

We are always open to hosting our meetup at a different location in and around Utrecht — so do you have a great location available for a next meetup? Let us know!

 

This meetup’s sponsor: Infloat

Infloat is an Utrecht-based boutique consultancy that specializes in the applications of blockchain technology. Infloat educates people and businesses on the applications and implications of blockchain technology and digital assets, and help them execute on new blockchain-based projects. Their projects include:

  • blockchain for real estate, finance, and local communities
  • issuing and managing shares of small- and medium-sized enterprises using blockchain technology;
  • developing educational programs around blockchain technology for Dutch Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences

Further, they send out a weekly newsletter on blockchain and finance, and are the initiators of Enter Network and the Utrecht Entrepreneurship Meetup.

 

Enter Network’s meetup in May 2019

The Utrecht Entrepreneurship is organized every month. The next meetup is on May 14th and the topic is Startup Funding: How to Get an Investment In. We have two GREAT speakers planned:

  • Marc Wesselink: Co-founder of Startupbootcamp, VentureRock, Trimix Fund and a number of other businesses. Marc has been an investor and entrepreneur his entire career, and can tell us a LOT about funding and entrepreneurship.
  • Luuk Koedam: Luuk has recently raised money in a first round of funding for his startup, City Challenge Amsterdam. He shares his experience with approaching investors and how he successfully obtained an investment.

Join the meetup! Whether you are looking for funds or not, understanding the process of funding is relevant, since funding is an integral part of entrepreneurship and business in general. Sign up for this meetup via our meetup page. Walk-in 19.00, we start 19.30 sharp! Location: Utrecht Community, 2e Daalsedijk 6a. Free entry.

 

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