For the last 6 years I’ve done mostly the same kind of freelancing work: web development at $X/hour. When I first started freelancing in 2011 I had some vague idea of the exciting life I was going to live, but I slowly realized that being a freelancer programmer is basically just a glorified job. Or more accurately, that’s true for most freelance programmers most of the time.

Because I intend to eventually to become a millionaire, I’ve been working for years on trying to build a product business. Those efforts date back to about 2008. My first five attempts didn’t make any money. My sixth attempt made something like $5,000 over the course of five years. My seventh attempt made about $8,000 over the course of a year. My entrepreneurial skills have been improving over time.

You could kind of say that my first five entrepreneurial attempts made an average of $0/year each, then my next one made an average of $1,000/year, then my next one made an average of $8,000/year. Now that I’ve gotten some decent entrepreneurial practice, I’m ready to build the business that will make $100,000/year. I’m not yet experienced enough to make a $100,000/year idea appear out of nowhere but I do believe I’m now experienced enough not to mistake a $1,000/year idea for a $100,000/year idea.

I’ve also come to understand that successful product businesses aren’t brainstormed but stumbled upon. So the question I’ve been asking myself has gone from, “How can I come up with a good product idea?” to “How can I put myself in a situation that will cause me to stumble upon a good product opportunity?”

I’ve cycled through a lot of different potential answers to that question. My current idea is that maybe I can get involved in the Shopify world and try to get a product idea to emerge there. How did I pick Shopify? I really don’t know. I just kind of randomly picked it.

My thought is that if I want to stumble upon a good Shopify-related product idea, maybe I can do some Shopify consulting for a while to give me some visibility into that world. In fact, maybe that Shopify consulting can even replace my freelance programming income and provide me with a better lifestyle during the time I’m working on my ultimate goal of build a product business.

The kind of Shopify consulting I’m thinking of doing is to help Shopify store owners build their email lists and make more sales to their existing email subscribers.

I’ve run out of time to write this post (gotta get back to the hourly programming work!) but I plan to share more as I go.