Just let go

Hey Guys,

guess you are surprised to hear from me again. Well, I could explain why, who, where, blabla but I don't think anybody really wants to hear the whole story.
So rather than bothering you with my life, I wanted to share an experience with you that is not solely business related, but may also help you in other situations.
This exactly brings to an important point about future posts: The Blog's name has changed to "indie guide to everything" (until I come up with something better) because I wanted to share all life experiences, tools and strategies with you - not only how to make money (although this will still be the hidden focus), but everything that comes to my mind to improve everyday-life itself.

With this in mind, I want to share a really good exercise with you:
Most projects I had in mind failed (whether business or personal!) because I just was not willing to adapt to change - like some other people, I am a real comfy fellow: I don't like when things change. As soon as a bookmarked website changes design, I get upset knowing I have to relocate all the buttons and sites I used to browse through on a daily basis. Or when my supermarket decides to move the candy department somewhere else... I could go on like this forever.
Anyway, the important part is: Each and everyday things around you change. Adapting to change fast is an essential skill in our world today, but just like you can't learn to be spontaneous over night, learning to deal with change also needs some exercise to get good at it.

So I came up with an idea to practice the whole change process:
Take a couple of moments and just look around you. If your place looks anything like my place you should have noticed a wide range of items. Just to give you an impression I briefly share with you what I saw:
Here's a telephone, a scanner, on the wall is an old movie poster, a stepper I barely ever used, a bass guitar, shoes books, old magazines, a bag of tea (really don't know why that's not in the kitchen) and some other creepy stuff, I don't want to name on the internet.
From now on start picking an item you own on a daily basis and just get rid of it - throw away old magazines, sell stuff on ebay, make a gift to someone who actually uses that item.
Again, if you're like me, you have real difficulties letting things go - so by forcing yourself to get rid of everything you don't really need (but still keep for reasons you can hardly name) you will be dealing with change everyday.
And plus points: you can make some extra bucks on ebay and you will be able to focus easier when there is no useless item around to distract you.

I hope some of you will join me and get rid of some things.
Some side information: The first item I got rid of today was an old calendar that still hung on my wall - the year was 2002, and no, this is not a joke.

So long,
take care guys!

BASF sold - other stocks gone wild!

Howdy Partners!
So again, I have to excuse, cause I'm really not that much of a reliable blogger these days - I somehow can't manage to write something about my portfolio!
Anyways, just to keep you updated: I sold BASF last week for 47,10 - a peek point they did not reach again up to date (lucky me).
DIC Asset is finally beginning reduce its losses and Wirecard (a company I still don't know too much about) keeps making good profits (see the picture above).
However, I am a bit disappointed that the DAX keeps defending its position, and since I'm short it sucks :(

Enough of my portfolio stuff, I wanted to share something else with you guys:
When I began trading I had the stupid thought of selling a stock at the intraday peak point.
For example, if you take Wirecard, I would have written a sell order with a limit that would maybe be 7,90 when the stock was currently selling for 7,80 or something. I thought it would be pretty smart to abuse intraday peak points, meaning that I just would sell the stock with a limit hoping that through the day the stock would rise to that point for maybe just a second and then sell at the highest possible price. Why is that stupid you ask?
Easy: By doing so, I did sell sometimes at pretty good prices, but afterall I lost more money because I lost the rest of the rise! So what I mostly do now is that I sell with a stop-loss-limit:
When the stock falls to a specified value (that's the stop) a selling order is being generated so I cut my losses (that's the loss) but still I sell with a limit then. For example today after wirecard made 2% I secured my win with the following order:

Stop-loss-limit
Stop: 7,40
Limit: 7,45
(The stock was selling for 7,52 or something at that time)
-> By the time the stock would fall under 7,40 a sell order would be generated with the limit to sell at minimum 7,45 (this is because sometimes when a stock falls it creates a certain bounce back effect meaning that people buy because the price is low). By doing this I could go all the way up without the fear of maybe losing all my winnings. Pretty cool, huh?

I can only recommend to trade like this, so you are more or less safe that you don't loose much and can participate in the whole rise of your stock. One last trading reminder: Don't forget to update you securing orders once a day (I had to learn this the hard way...)!

Sale ;)

I kinda felt like it was Sale the other day, so I hooked myself up with some financial assets.
For one, I bought Wirecard. Actually, I don't really know what they really do (which, trust me, is sometimes the best) but recently they lost over 30% in a day due to market rumors that to be false. So if this is true, and I highly hope so, I have bought their stocks with a nice discount. You see - pure speculation.
Then I was looking at the DAX and I thought to myself: Holy Crap! The last time the DAX reached that level was shortly before the whole Lehman desaster (remember?) - perfect time to go short !
In financial terms you usually go "long", meaning that you hold common stocks in your portfolio and if they increase in value you profit from that.
If you go short, well, it's like a bet: You bet that the stocks are about to fall in price, so you participate from their losses.
I have just bought an ETF (exchange traded fund - you can buy this one at regular stock markets) that does exactly that: If the DAX falls 1% I make 1% profit (not exactly, but it works roughly like that) - pretty cool huh? :)

Anyway, now that I'm almost fully invested I think I might have some trouble sleeping at night. But that's the whole beauty of gambling, isn't it?

Long time no trade

So dear readers,

I was pretty lazy over the past two weeks due to two reasons:
First, I just started a new job, which basically took away all of my time and second, well almost nothing happened.

So what did happen?
As you see my portfolio has decreased and I am currently in the red zone.
How come? Well for one thing, I have sold my Fiat stocks (it was more of an automatic limit sell, but well whatever) and made some 100 Bucks or so and as you can see I have something in my portfolio that has no value.
What's that? These are options on new stock. DIC Asset AG decided that it would be kinda cool to issue more stocks. Firms do this either because they need money, or like in this case, because they think in the near future the time is right to purchase a couple of objects and therefore put money aside.
So what happens when a company issues new stocks? First of all, the stock price falls dramatically, because now there are more shares and this means that all money that is earned has to be split among more shareholders. In a nutshell: your piece of the cake gets smaller.
But there is a certain law that provides shareholders from being ripped off:
If new shares are issued only the old shareholders have the right to buy them. Often enough new stocks are issued well below the current market price, and so you can either buy the stocks or you can sell your right to buy new stocks to someone who wants to.
As I do not want to reinvest in that company, I will choose to sell my right tomorrow hence generating an instant cash flow of something between 40 and 60 €.

In the end this means that I am not really losing money, although the picture above tells something else ;)

Keep reading cause these days could be somewhat exciting in terms of stock trading!

Update Update!

So folks,
yesterday was kind of a big day for my whole portfolio.

1. I sold Solarworld after the stock rocketed upwards to 11€, leaving me with 3% profit (the day before I had a 5% loss - lucky me ! )

2. I bought BASF (Goldman Sachs Conviction - you know you want it!) and DIC Asset AG, which is a real estate company mainly for office buildings. I always wanted to invest in real estate and that company seemed great. Well, doesn't pay out yet (see the table above), but after I saw Solarworld rise and fall (or in that case rather fall and rise) I believe in every stock.

3. As you can see, my Fiat stocks did a pretty good job for the whole portfolio performance.
After all, this leaves me with 2% overall performance, which for the time being is terrific, really.


I got some money left, and I'm thinking about hedging my portfolio with some short option. The DAX looks pretty overbought as a whole, but it's not that clear. Hmm...
Stay tuned !

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

I did it again.
It's like, when you want to quit smoking. You remember all bad things about it and tell yourself, it's one of stupidiest things you've ever done. And then you do it again. Maybe not immediately, but at some point you always do it again. Afterwards you feel miserable, and tell yourself that now you really quit.
I've been having the same hard feelings with tech stocks. You have know, that when I was 11 I put my whole money (confirmation money, mostly) in a tech fund. A year or so later, the Internet-Tech bubble burst, and I lost a fortune.
At that point I swore myself never to buy tech stocks again - and now? Damn, yesterday I bought Solarworld. I'm almost crying right now, because it was one of the worst decisions I made - ever!
At this point (a day later) I already lost 5%, which would be most of the profit the peugeot trade made. Life's tough. Trading, too.
I wouldn't recommend buying that shitty Solarworld stock. I don't know, why I did it, honestly. I was influenced or under the influence or something like that.

However, I did make a trade which is maybe worthwhile - bought myself a share in Fiat (for some reasons I dig car manufacturers now).
Why? Easy - Goldman Sucks said "Conviction Buy" so I bought. Although most Analysts don't know a thing about stocks (read City Boy and you'll understand) these guys really know when to buy. Every time a Goldman says buy, you better buy - trust me they know game.

That's it for today - I will retreat now and cry about the stupidity of the Solarworld trade.
Never ever am I buying stupid tech stocks again...

Bye Bye Peugeot

By now I have sold Peugeot again. With more than 7% return in 3 days I thought it's better to secure what I got so far.
And here comes a very important fact about trading: It's almost impossible to buy at the cheapest possible price and sell at the highest. Trust me - been there, done that (or rather tried that).
As I follow how the stock went I see that I could have sold it for even more than I got, but hey that's trading. As long as you go out with a profit, you've done everything right.
Besides 7% in 3 days? Put that in your pipe and smoke it, dear fund managers!

However, this does leave me with another problem: Where to invest now!?
Hmm...

what happened?

My mad man portfolio selection turns out to work so far.
Since yesterday I could make a profit of 3,85 %.
This may not seem much, but most people get less return p.a. (per annum - per year)
on their investments.
I don't want to praise myself too much, because maybe by tomorrow it's all worthless again.
Still, if anyone had been following my investment advice (which I assume nobody really did)
he or she would be 3,85% richer, which in my case equals about 40€ (not bad for a day).
But what really bothers me is that I couldn't come up with any other investment idea, because I can't decide whether the market is generally going up or down...uff. Ideas, anyone?
It really kills me that I have more money lying on the bank account than in stocks - damn.
I'm thinking about investing in Cheesecake factory, because Penny, the main character of "the big bang theory" works there - can't be any bad, can it?

See you tomorrow guys!

My Portfolio

So guys,
I had some trouble writing posts lately because I was pretty stressed out by exams and shit. However, now I have a bunch of time and will continue this how it was meant.
Today I'm starting with my own portfolio (portfolio in this context: selection of financial assets, such as stocks, in which you have invested money).
Or well, I'm not starting it, I'm rather exposing it to you, so you can follow my investments, pick up some and comment on them.

OK, let's start here:
Today, as you see I bought stocks of the well known french car manufacturer Peugeot.
Why that? Partly because I myself drive a 10-years-old 206 and partly because I just had this feeling while observing the stock, that a price below 20€ is just too low.
Stating this is very risky, I know, because you always have to see why the stock price changed. However, the market is not perfect and over the past months and years I started observing that some stocks have a kind of strike price:
If they fall below that, they will always go up again. A pretty good example of this would be the Apple stock of the past month. The moment it got under 200$ it always went up again - crazy huh?
This is, as you see, no in depth analysis, but sometimes you just have to follow a feeling, especially in stocks.

It's kinda lame, that I only have one stock in portfolio. Actually, there were two in there, namely a bunch of Telefonica stocks but these have been automatically sold due to a limition. Honestly, I liked my Telefonica stocks, and I think I will rebuy them if they fall a little.

That's it for today, stay tuned for major changes in my portfolio during the next few days/weeks, since I have cash lying around on the bank account and can't leave the house due to an operation I had (damn you wisdom teeth!).

What does the stock price mean?

Todays lesson is pretty easy:
Everything you really should know about a stock can be narrowed down to pricing. Why does a stock go up or down? How do I forecast it?

To start off, imagine you own a company and decide to issue stocks. This means you split the whole company up in little, equal-sized pieces worth a certain percentage of your firm (you can also reissue stocks, but that's too complex for now).
I will skip all useless information I could throw in at this point and go directly to the important part:
How much is my stock really worth? In deciding how much a company as a whole (and therefore each stock) is worth we have two methods:
1. book value
The book value is basically everything the company owns. For understanding:
Suppose you're a producer of soft drinks. Your company owns a factory building where you mix the drinks, also you own all the machinery needed, plus you own an office building which is packed with desks, computers, chairs, etc.
Add all this stuff up and this is the book value of your firm (roughly). In econimist language we say: The value of a firm is determined by the value of its assets.

2. market value
Suppose, you are not any softdrink producer, you are Coca Cola Inc.
The market value is more or less the current stock price (if you haven't got any debt) * the number of stocks.
The thing is, the stock price is often enough above book value. Why is that so? Well, it's hard to tell how much a firm is really worth, because if you would buy Coca Cola, the company assets (along with the secret formula) might not be the expensive part, but the brand itself is: If you are coca cola, you are able to sell your products at a higher price than any no-name soft drink producer.
So we have to keep in mind how your company might make profits in the future.
You see it's pretty hard to calculate the exact price of a stock.

What can you do then?
Let us first take a look at why stock prices rise and fall:
We are back at your company coca cola.
The current stock price is 50$. Out of the blue McDonalds announces that they will team up with you and firmed a contract saying that for the next 100 years they will annualy buy drinks off you worth 1 million/year.
So how does that affect your company? Your stocks have to be worth more than before, since you know that you will earn an extra amount of cash each year.
So your stock price goes up to, say, 55 $ - meaning you just made your first 10% (of course you own a good amount of stocks in your own company).

Unfortunately, a month after that the fat-people-lobby managed to sue McD. for their unhealthy food and the whole court thing made McD. go bankrupt. This means the deal above will never take place. Therefore your stocks fall back to 50$. Easy come, easy go!

There is a certain saying:
Stocks rise on rumors and fall on news.

Mostly instead of the scenario above it goes like this:
Your mate Dave works at McDonalds. He overheard a conversation of the current CEO saying that he wants to team up with Coca Cola. Instantly Dave tells you and everyone he knows. The stocks rise, because investors expect Coke to have a deal no one yet knows about.
This is called speculation. Although you don't know how things end up, you have some kind of feeling how they could go (please, don't ever listen to an investment advice from a bro working at McDonalds - you will regret it, trust me).
Just remember 5th grade: Only because Dave told you he kissed Anna McGee doesn't mean it really happened (or it will ever happen for that matter).
So if things go bad, because maybe McDonalds denies any future plans with coke(or Anna with Dave), your stocks will fall again.
On the other hand they might rise even more if rumors are confirmed by the firm.
Interesting, isn't it?

To sum up the whole thing :
If you buy a stock, you need some sort of idea why the price could rise. This can be anything: Whether you believe Apple's iPad to be the next big thing or Amazon's Kindle (buy one of the two then, or maybe even both).

Indie Guide to Trading

Hello Folks,
I actually started all this so that at some point I could keep track of my wins and losses on my investments. Maybe before I will share my choices on stocks with you, I will make clear everyone gets what I mean and has more or less the same knowledge about trading.
I always thought that Trading should be Indie Career No. 1, because you can make money without really doing anything, and do you don't need very much to start - most people however don't get this, and are therefore scared by trading and miss out on a lot of money. I will make sure you are not one of them :)

What are stocks?
A stock is a tiny part of a company. If you buy a stock (also called share) you are a shareholder, meaning you own part of the company. Pretty cool, huh?

Where do I buy stocks?
To buy a stock you usually use a stock exchange market. Some bad movies (also some good ones) always show guys in a giant room screaming numbers to buy stocks. This isn't quite true anymore. Almost anything stock related is done through computers. So you would rather buy a stock online, silently than shouting out random numbers (your roomies may find that somehow annoying).

What do I need to buy stocks?
I will show you how to buy stocks online later on, because that's the cheapest way. So you need everything you already needed to read this blog, plus some money to invest and a bit of knowledge on the whole trading stuff.

Do really think it's a good time to buy stocks, after the financial crisis and all?
Well, yes I do. I did, and it brought in good money. But that's another story.
The thing about trading is that you can never really tell if it's a good time or not. And that's the fun part. If by calling it a bad time you mean that stock prices are steadily falling, well than it's great time! Why that? If you truly believe you know that prices are going to fall, you are able to buy products (other financial products than stocks) that make you profit from losses. Sounds pretty bad ass, and it is. It is always a good time to invest - a good trader makes the greatest profit when the rest of the world is falling apart.

Isn't the whole thing damn risky?
Yes, it is. It's riskier than your bank account, or a goverment bond your dad bought you.
But it's also a much better way to make money fast.
For example: I think the average bond might you about 3 or 4% interest on your money. In a year. Meaning that in one year your money will be worth 4% than it's worth today (at this point we assume you can forget about inflation).
4% ? You can make 4% with stocks in a day. Or you can make even more.
Some of my friends think that buying a stock is somehow like playing a slot machine in a casino. You invest money and you either win big or lose all. But it's really not that big a deal. You can limit losses, and after all only stocks usually don't lose all of their value in one day. Or after all.
We will come to this later.

So, hope I could give you a kind of introduction to the whole trading thing. I will go into more detail later on - keep checking ;)

Indie Careers Part 2: DJing

So folks, as I already mentioned in an earlier post this time Indie Careers will be about DJing.
Last Saturday I had a blast DJing at a party I organized. Even though I won't name any figures, I can say that when I counted the money I was grinning from ear to ear.
So how come? How do you get there, what do you need, and most importantly: How much is in there?

First things first: Before you start, you'll have to invest quite a bit in equipment. Depending on how much money and time you want to spend you choose one of these:
1. Vinyl all the way
+ style, coolness
+ Vinyl moves
+ little technology
- records are expensive
- old records are hard to find and may not be in best shape
+/- you have learn the art and craft of mixing

Needed: 2 turntables, mixer, records
Costs: try ebay for used equipment, about 300-500€, roughly 1-15€/record
You'll need at least 60 records to even start thinking about mixing live

2. CD DJs
Well, I did never like them very much, it's way to expensive and you cannot handle them that good. I won't elaborate on this. Buy something else. Really.

3. Mp3 all the way
By far the cheapest and easiest solution. You'll need a laptop (which you most likely already have), some usb mixer and a soundcard with at least 4 mono-output-channels.
You then just need software (Traktor is pretty good) and mp3s.
+ Easy to handle (BPM Counter and a lot of software-tweaks help you)
+ You should have enough mp3s already, or you can buy them for 1€/track
+ even old songs sound great
+ cheap
+ good for transport (you can pack a bag and have everything you need)
- no style
- no real skill needed
- have to rely on software and pcs

Needed: Laptop, soundcard, mixer, mp3s
Costs: for 100€ you can buy a used soundcard and mixer, another 50 for the software

4. Mp3-Vinyl Hybrid
Commonly used by a lot of DJs today
+ you can bring your whole record collection along
+ all vinyl moves
- you have to rely on software
- very expensive initial costs

Needed: See 1.vinyl all the way + software and hardware
Costs: See 1. + 200 to 500€ for the soft and hardware

How long until you rock the crowd? Depends, but you will practice your butt off for at least half a year before you have decent skills. Mp3 DJing however does not require much skill, roughly a month and you know how to do it. Of course you should know a thing or two about music, if you play an instrument - good for you, it will be a lot easier then.
How to get the first gig? Talk to people, record a mixtape and give it to friends, either start playing everything from birthday to bar mizwa or befriend some other DJ who might let you play as a support or opener for him. Or: Throw your own party - organizing a party can be tough and stressful, but it will pay out sooner or later.

If you just DJ, you can expect either nothing when you start (although you shouldn't play too many unpaid gigs) or something between 50 and 150 € (maybe somewhat lower, depending on circumstances).
However, if you organize the party there can be up to 1000 bucks in for you (100,200 are easy to make). Depending on how much people are willing to pay for your party, and how many show up, of course. Speaking of which: At the beginning only your friends, and friends of friends, will show up. The more popular you are, the better, and if at some point you are some Richie Hawtin or so, expect to see a whole lot of people you don't know.

The good thing about DJing is: People do not get bored of you too quick. If you're in a band, well try playing the same show month after month at the same place - won't work. However, if you play a similar set month after month at the same spot people will love you for that. I know it sounds weird first, but think about - don't you go to your favorite club for exactly the same reason? The best thing about it: You get free drinks, and no one cares if you're getting tipsy while earning money.

In a nutshell

Knowledge needed? 3/5
Getting started? 3/5
Salary? 4/5

DJing

So guys, actually this was meant to be another Indie Careers post, but I have to promote myself a little bit first.
I'm DJing tonight in Hofheim near Frankfurt - anyone who likes disco and electronic music is highly welcome :)
Entry: 3€

You may ask yourself if DJing or party planning is such a lucrative thing that I had to post it here. Actually it is.
In some future posts I will explain how much money you can make with partying. It's not that much compared with time and money you have to spend before actually earning some, but still it's sort of cool to earn your cash that way.

Never listen to what others tell you

This is now something that's not only business related, but more of general thought.
Everyday people feel the need to mock someone or something, mostly because they can't do any better. Or they don't know any better. Either way, it's the same: Most people have average lives, like average music and films, fill up their spare time with average spare time activities and so on.
Average people always tend to mock others who step out of their average world.
Maybe I have to go into greater detail to prove my point:
I was a nerd, long before being a nerd was cool (in my opinion being a nerd never actually became cool, I believe in a conspiracy of VICE magazine and the horn-rimmed glasses industry, but that's another story). However, when I was a kid, most kids my age had taken an interest in sports or cartoons or other pointless kids stuff. For some reason I was fascinated by computers (yeah, I know) and wanted to learn everything about my pc and how it worked and how to build it myself, etc. Time went by and by the time I was 14 I was obliged to take an internship (my school made everyone do that). So since I could choose where to go I headed off for a two-weeks internship in my hometowns' local pc store. It was awful. I wasn't allowed to do anything on a pc, even though I was easily able to repair each and every one them. My "boss" always said something like: "You don't know knothing, you would just break it blabla I'm a giant dickhead" (I can't remember the exact words). Years later, I was repairing pcs for money and the store went bankrupt - put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Schmidt!
Another example: As I turned 16 I was given the chance to play bass in a band. The thing was: I didn't know how to play bass. I didn't even own a damn bass! But well my band mates showed me more or less what I had to play and like 2 months after that we were about to have our first paid gig (looking back, I can't really tell why anyone would have paid to see us - our music just sucked). When I told my friends, some we're really making fun of me, saying that I could never play live and that I didn't know how to play bass because I had never taken any bass classes and so on.
Well, I don't think many people can tell that they had their first paid gig before even knowing how to play their instrument - until this day, guess who didn't play in front of an audience.
My last example: Last summer I was really feeling down. I didn't know what to do, and I was broke because I didn't have a job and you know - usual stuff.
While I was hanging around in a café I met this guy, who said he needed a website for his company. Instantly I offered my services and said that I would take care of this. Just guess now. Yeah right, I never really designed a website before. When I told people, that I had charged that guy like 300 bucks for something I still couldn't do, they laughed at me telling me that I couldn't do a thing like that. Turns out I could. I took some time and spent endless hours in front of my computer screen reading and watching youtube how-to-videos until I was able to present that guy a website he still digs. And I continued designing websites.
Bottom line: There will always be people in your way, that don't approve of what you do, or how you do it. Taking advice from someone is never a bad thing, but don't let people change you and your ideas. My idea for starting this blog was mainly my fascination with unusual ways to earn money. As soon as you start something unique, something different, people will stand in your way. But you should never listen to those.
Looking back, I do not regret anything I did, I had a blast playing live without having a clue what I was doing, and I also enjoyed taking on a job I had never done before - things like this give you a whole lot of confidence. Like nike puts it: Just do it. Don't think too much about it. Do what you love, and have a great time while doing it. Always remember: Average people only have average fun.

“If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.” – Billie Holiday

Book review: Freakonomics (Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner)

Of course, every hard working indie business man has to take a break once in while, put away the financial times and take some time off. And since most of us use the train and tube, for almost the same reason that cityboys in london do, we spend a whole lot of time sitting and waiting, and from now on reading - Freakonomics of course !
I just got this as a christmas present (a great one, by the way) and can highly recommend it to everyone interested in a different approach to economics (which applies to all of us, of course).
So what it is all about? The main head behind Freakonomics is Steven D. Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, who has a wide interest in most things usual professors care very little about. Long story short: Throughout the book he uses the methods and techniques commonly used in the field of economics (e.g. regression analysis and statistics), combined with exceptional thoughts and observations about common day phenomons.
Just to give a short teaser: Do you know why drug dealers, although they earn a lot of money still live with their moms? Or what sumo wrestlers and school teachers have in common?

I promise you have a great time, and if you like crazy statistics (be prepared for drug dealer accounting and a statistic that shows why people steal bagels) you will definitely want to read this one. Don't worry, it's not written for economists only.

What the heck is a market gap anyway?

From time to time I always hear my mostly non-economist friends complaning about wanting to be rich (they mostly do this when they're broke). The fun thing is that always the next sentence is something like this: "It could be so easy if only I could find a market gap..."

Unfortunately, most people tend to get the idea of a market gap wrong:
Finding a market gap has actually little to do with luck, and a whole lot to do with statistics and observation. You can be very creative, but you don't have to.
The most interestig question now: how do I find a market gap? Funnily, this is something you may hear VERY briefly in marketing 101 , and it seems that most people either don't know much about it, or they don't want to share their knowledge. Just look at this wikipedia entry:

"A market opportunity emerges if a product or a service, based on either one technology or several, fulfills the need(s) of a (preferably increasing) market better than the competition and better than substitution-technologies within the given environmental frame (e.g. society, politics, legislation, etc.). [...] "

OK... What? You see what I mean. As I mentioned above, this is typically one aspect of marketing. Against common belief, large companys do not have a research department with a bunch of crazy scientists hanging around and doing all kinds of experiments and occasionaly finding something that is worth selling. It's actually more like this example:
Assume you are the head of marketing of a big company that produces sanitary products. You notice, that since your son reached puberty his skin is full of pimples. You think about, why your company doesn't provide a decent product that helps him with this problem. So you go to the research guys and explain them that you need a product that helps your son get rid of his problem. See? No big mystery. Just some observation. Maybe this example is not the best, but it should have prepared you for an in-depth analysis of how to spot market gaps.

As I think, there are basically three types of market gaps, and if you know them, you easily are able to find some yourself (but be aware: not every market gap turns out to be lucrative)

1. Create a new product
Most people would define a market gap this way. Something that doesn't exist yet.
Creating a new product or service involves heavy research, observation and a tiny bit of creativity. To begin with: Think about what you really need or miss in life. Just recently I found something that fitted one thing I really needed badly:
Suppose you are on a first date, and of course you are kinda nervous because your date is overwhelmingly beautiful, but still you're hanging in there, being suave as hell and then just as you tell your best story, which is actually more of an average story but you try to compensate it with heavy gesturing, she is immediately turned off. Why? Well, in the heat of moment you must have sweated like a danish cartoonist in mecca, and she saw that unpleasent body reaction through the armpits of your shirt.
A lot of people in that situation would really love something to prevent this. As I recently went to my local grocery store I found a kind of pad, which you could put in your shirt so that the sweat doesn't get through. That is how you create a new product and therefore fill up a market gap. However, just as I told before, you should do some research whether or not that product is already out on the market (maybe you just missed it?).

2. Improving a product or service that already exists
Sometimes you can just improve an already existing product and fill up a market gap. Examples? Just look at the iPhone. What is so new about it? It has a touch screen, can be used as an mp3 player and you can access the net - wow, big deal, back in 2006 my motorola A925 could already do this. So why does everyone praise that apple phone, but the same people kept laughing at me back then for heaving such a big cell phone (which is really interesting, because the iPhone for that matter is gigantic, too)? Apple sure does know how to promote a product and make it look "sexy", so the coolness factor has been dramatically improved, as well as the whole user interface and pc/mac sync. However, one reason the A925 failed, sure was that at time it was freakishly expensive to hit the net with your phone.
So we learn: Even though a product exists, there is almost always room for improvement. If there is a need for improvement, even some minor adjustments like design, you can hit the market with a better version of that product or service.
Of course an improvement does not have to be technical or designwise - a smaller price is a big improvement in most markets. That's why as soon as something new turns out to be cool, a whole bunch of replicas appear and try to get customers who can't afford the original product.

3. Introduce a given product to a new market
Ever wondered what your hometown is missing? If you know something: congratulations, you just found another market gap! For example, Hollister just opened a store in Frankfurt.
Turns out, that there was a giant amount of people who really likes that stuff (honestly, Hollister just sucks. I mean really, who buys that crap?) but just couldn't get it nearby. And I bet if someone introduces Dunkin' Donuts to Frankfurt, he or she will make a fortune (i like donuts). Of course franchising sucks, because it's way too expensive and regulated and shit, but still I hope you get my point.
Does someone in your town offer yoga classes? No? Where do people, who want to take yoga classes go then? This kind of market gap works best for services that are either frequently used ( a gym, private tutoring, a pizza place, supermarkets), meaning people can't afford to lose much time time travelling to get that service/ product (who would drive 1h to the gym, if he could apply to one that is only a 5min walk away?) or for services that are maybe just needed once, but should not be far away to make you feel safe (most craftsmen abuse this dilemma: where do you go when you're tv is broke? or your car? you're very likely to stay local. And what about computer problems? Does your hometown provide any computer services? No? If you know something about PCs, you could be that guy!).

I hope I could give you a rough idea about how to find a market gap. As you see, it's no big secret after all.

Indie Careers Part 1: Teaching

That's the classic. Teaching can be really sexy - just look at the pic (yeah cheap eyecatcher... seems to work though).
Most people don't really get the potentitial teaching has businesswise, but I'm sure you young indie entrepreneur do:
You need almost no money to start off and it's easy to get customers.
First you should think about what you want to teach, I just narrowed it down to three possibilities:

1. Private Tuition
The worse the school system in your country, the better your chances of getting hired as a private tutor for students.
The salary is not great, but it's better than most jobs you could get at that stage, plus the work environment is warm and you can sit (don't take these for granted!). Expected salary would be something about 10 - 15 €/hour in most european countrys. (maybe someone tells me how much it's elsewhere?)
If you've been at school, you must have learned something that you could pass on, so the required knowledge for this field is not very high - just pick a few subjects that you think you're good at and give it a shot (you might even consider tutoring something you really sucked at back then: I did this with 10th grade math, which I almost flunked - turns out some years later I knew the trick and that kiddo I tutored rocked his math test).
If at this point you are still unsure, think about how great it is to be a teacher.
Just remember "Dead Poets Society" and picture yourself giving some little man advice on love, and the meaning of life while helping out with the homework (Damn, how good was Dead Poets Society?). Aristoteles did it, Robin Williams did it, and you could do it too.
Extra Bonus: If you're good, you not only get paid, but it's very likely you get cookies, too ( screw you - cookies rule!)
I did tutor myself during the last years at school, and I really liked it. I think in my high times I gave about 10 h/week - so you see there is potential in there if you know how to get customers and manage your time.
Talking about customers, the easiest way to get any is to place an ad in your local newspaper - costs are about 5 bucks, but it's really worth it - if your lucky you get more customers than you could possibly handle, whick is very rare in the beginning of every business).

Short key facts:
Knowledge needed? 1/5
Getting started? 1/5
Salary? 1/5 or 2/5 depending who you tutor

I kind of lost myself here, but there some other potential fields for teachers I want to mention:
2. Teaching an instrument
If you play an instrument, consider yourself lucky. Basically everything I said before applies also here - it might be more difficult to get customers, but you can easily double the salary.
However, you really should know something about music, but if you do teaching beginners is no big deal. It may be hard to get enough customers right away, so the combination of 1 and 2 might do the trick to increase your personal cash flows.

3. Teaching something special
This is by far the most difficult field to start in. I have no experience here, but I do know some people are able to live off it pretty good. If you are really good at something most people know almost nothing about (i.e. mandarin chinese or python programming) you could teach that. It's very hard to get customers, but if you do they will pay you ridiculously high sums of money because they need your knowledge.

This was just a short introduction on how to get started. So what do you think? Does a career in teaching suit you?

How to get started

Nobody of us is born a business genius. I wasn't and I suppose you weren't either.
Someone who has never cared for business, economics, self employment and so on may find it hard to get started. I have currently read about two girls who were thinking about opening some sort of goa-indian style store (yeah whatever). You could tell from that article two things:
1. The girls had not the slightest idea of running a business.
2. If they really open that store, they are very likely to fail

Now you might think: Hey, wait a minute, wasn't this blog all about making money without great effort? Wrong. Being self-employed, and most of my advises rely on that, is rarely effortless.
I named it indie guide, because I like the do-it-yourself idea of indie music and how everyone is able to be part of it. But nevertheless, the typical indie career as, say, a musician doesn't just happen over night. You need to practice your ass of on an instrument, then practice with your band mates, play gigs, record and so on. So being an indie rock star is pretty cool, but it involves work nevertheless. That's how the indie guide is meant.
The bad news first: You need some basic knowledge about business and economics.
The good news: It's really not that much, and once it grabs you, it may even be interesting.

So I made up my mind, and here are some potential first steps for you:
-Learn how the economy works. Understand how big companys earn their money (try to understand their business).
-Keep yourself up-to-date with trends, and think about how they can affect you and potential business plans (important, this means any trend whether it is climate change or people in western countries becoming more and more overweight)
-read the paper daily or constantly check some news and ecomony related websites (RSS feeds will help keeping you up-to-date)

Remember: Don't take things to seriously. Maybe most important of all:
Never value money other than as a tool to make more money - the only problem money can solve is debt. There are so many things that make life worth living - keep your eyes and mind open and you will see.

So this is the beginning

Hello out there!
My name's Vitti, and I started this blog to share my passion for unusual ways to make money.
I chose the name indie guide to money making because I want this blog to be a guide for everyone who is interested in ways to make money, while having a shitload of fun.
I have a wide interest in (young) enterpreneurship, the stock market and unusual marketing methods. Of course, I also have other interest, therefore some basic background on my person:
I am an economic student aged 20, living in the german business capital Frankfurt.
I am addicted to most american TV-series, I bought my first stocks when I was 11 and I have a passion for music (sometimes I DJ, which is cool because I make money that way).
My last job was viral marketing for blackberry and some other sources income include teaching and design/webdesign. Besides, I'm currently planning on starting a little marketing company.
I think I could tell you a thing or two about making money, and if you can too feel free to contact me or leave a comment - I would really dig that.
I hope you enjoy my little blog!

Just a basic statement: Everything I describe here is totally legal, but often enough pretty risky. Always keep that in mind.