Gooday Gaming Guests - Home Based and Beyond

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

You need to keep doing diversification of new ideas and products.

Alright, so I want to take a little time and talk about being home-based. That's kind of how I say the term, home-based. So, for me, I've been trying to find ways to be home-based since, I don't know, 2011. I had a few jobs here and there, odds and odds. But I really like working on my own. With the internet, you could pretty much come up with some ideas on ways to work from home on your own, sell stuff, create stuff.

I mean, you got tons and tons of, especially nowadays, but even back when I first started looking around or coming up with ideas i think etsy had just come around so if you're creative you can easily find ways to home base that or ebay selling stuff so when i first started out i was playing around with liquidation items i talked about this a few many times actually but i just want to concentrate just on this for just for a little bit

because I thought it was kind of interesting so I was using liquidation.com buying pallets of broken returned items and then trying to resell them for parts on eBay I did that for a few years I wasn't really too successful at it spending almost as much as I was selling I did that for a few years. I wasn't really too successful at it.

Spending almost as much as I was selling. But I got better at it. Finding better websites to sell on. There wasn't as many back then. We're talking 2010, 2015. But then I found a local guy a local connection who contacted me directly and then i started going up to there driving up there and and filling my truck up with electronics that were broken and then taking them home and trying to flip them either trying to fix them i really wasn't actually was doing not as much fixing, because I don't know electronics, so that's therefore my

downfall, I can troubleshoot the heck out of stuff, but electronics, obviously this was way before AI or anything so I was just basically flipping them as for parts, and it worked out better, because I wasn't having to buy pallets and pay for that

therefore I got past the liquidation.com and was doing someone directly here within the state that made a huge difference and i did that for a few years and then they started to uh go to all tvs so my home base started to change because I couldn't get really any more good electronic stuff and the stuff that they did have was like radios TVs computers I mean not TVs but TVs were later but mostly radios music stuff had all kinds of really fun I just go up and grab a truckload for x amount and then I would just try to make money off it so again we did that for a few years so they changed over to tvs initially was just a little bit of tvs and then they went to all tvs i actually haven't contacted them in a bunch of years now

but yeah so tvs was such an interesting uh home base to sell the parts off of it. The biggest thing was I'd have to rent a truck. The biggest truck I rented was 24 foot. And I would go up and fill up a whole truckload of TV's. Broken, not working, mostly in the box. A lot of them not in the box. And then I would have to bring that truck home again it's rented so you got to get there pick up the stuff get it dropped off and then bring it

back but within a day so if i'm filling a 24 foot truck of tvs we was back in probably 2014 15 yeah 2014 maybe was the tail end of my doing the tvs i did that for maybe a year i want to say i did five truckloads some were smaller truckloads some were bigger uh and it was a recycling nightmare and And I did it all myself. As I do all my stuff here. But it's an idea. You can make money off doing it. But you've got to recycle all the boxes. And first, well, first you've got to rent something to get it all.

And then you have to place the put it all. So we're talking a 24-foot trailer full of TVs. Packed to the max. I had to put that in my basement i don't even still know how i did it i don't even have any uh extra rooms back then either yet so then you have to tear the tv down you have to test it most times the screen's broken so you just assume the screen is the only issue so you're tearing down the main board out of it uh you get a power board usually and you get some sort of a another small board maybe some buttons some cables and then basically you have to try to resell them uh for somebody's looking for tv parts but lots of tv part buyers are just as difficult as our gaming part buyers so it was really really

hard to sell stuff so for one TV you might make you know 25 bucks off of one board or two but everything else has to be recycled so luckily once I took the boards out of it, I could take the TVs broken without the boards and not have to pay a recycling fee. You can put them in the electronics bin, which is free. However, basically, you're taking out the electronics out of it. And then that goes to a recyclable place so we did that for i don't know if we're again we're in 2016-17 when i started looking at my gaming stuff i started getting gaming parts gaming systems those were also found i was buying them off ebay andy. Then I found a local guy who still has it. He'll always have tons of gaming stuff.

So I started out doing like everybody else does and trying to fix systems that would then resell to make money. But that was difficult. Shipping was expensive. If you sold a console and something went wrong, that big price had to get returned and then you have to up front

that money again. So then I started breaking things down because I wanted to learn about stuff while I was doing it. I did that with TV. I wish I would have done some videos back when I was doing TVs and liquidation stuff that's again it's a whole business you can definitely make a living doing it uh but i did learn a lot but i didn't take any videos back then

uh even the gaming i only started doing this youtube maybe a year ago a little less than a year ago probably the last six months've put really good time into it. And then the podcast here, only a few weeks really that I've been doing this. But I enjoy it. It's kind of fun actually. So home base, again, when Coven came out, this was a game changer. When the first Coven came out, I had already built my home base. So I was all set. And I had lots of supplies.

Lots of systems by then. I had collected all kinds of stuff. My eBay store was pretty good. And my store just took off. I went crazy. I was doing like 30 orders. 10 to 30 orders a day. Which was insane for me.

But that's when I really really learned that home-based is where you got to be especially in this day and age especially going forward so i was again uh i was i was i'm upset i had a local guy where he gets stuff i had another i found another uh local business kind of thing where i could get even more fun stuff you can see the palettes of that if you look back at my um videos you can type in palettes of gaming systems you can see where i could get i was getting those but i had to come up with a lot of money up front in order to get them. And I still could be getting them today. But I can't afford to do that. So I had to give that up. And I had to give up my local guy here.

But what's happened in the last couple of years. Especially this year. Is selling just gaming parts is just not enough now. I can't survive. I used to be able to. Again, back when COVID was, I was flying around. But at the same time, I was trying to learn each system. And I was also going out to try to find one of every system ever made.

So therefore, I racked up all my credit cards. It's just kind of like going to school, basically. I put myself through at home gaming school again before ai so i had no idea i was coming so i learned as much as possible but when you go to college you rack up some sort of tuition so i had a i still have a huge debt to pay. But I've been about two years now into what they call National Debt Consolidation Program. So I didn't go bankrupt or anything. I just throw it all into there.

And I've got two years into it. And two more years to go and I'll have it paid off. So I have no credit at all but i learned everything again i had at least one of every system as much as possible there's some that i haven't gotten but i learned about different ones from around the world i got lots of euro stuff learned how to use pal with PAL TV or converter. There's 220 step up, learned how to do that. So all the things that helped me progress in my home base.

So then I started playing around with YouTube, I think the last year. If you look way back at my first videos, you'll see very small little desk space and really no no light and lighting and because i really don't have a lot of room somehow i transferred my room into a bigger space and finally the space that i have and i really have no other space to put anything uh right now my workbench is completely full of random projects 3d printers i invested in some 3d printers that i not done anything with yet uh so then i really started concentrating on youtube trying to get my space better uh i got a better mic better webcam but it's taking a while i'm always a work in

progress basically but it's fun it's one way to learn is to kind of yeah i'm the kind of guy i just throw things against the wall and just see what sticks so again this last year my ebay store has gone significantly down um i have lots of vintage computing that was another thing that i in the last year i changed from buying more computer systems gaming systems to investing in all a bunch of computer stuff so i kind of lost out and have an extra more gaming stuff to sell but i wanted to learn about old computers especially apple ones so i was getting a lot of stuff from the local guy. So instead of spending money on more gaming systems, it's kind of like I've been there, done that kind of thing.

I have plenty of parts left over. I was investing in something I hadn't done yet, or I couldn't remember. My Tandy computers, I got a whole series of those. And I just started selling some computer parts here and there. I have some vintage stuff. I've sold a couple of

vintage Apple laptops recently. Complete. See, something like that. Most of those I will just sell as a whole thing. Is it worth money? As opposed to trying to tear it down like a gaming system. Because it's a lot involved in that. And it worth money as opposed to trying to tear it down like a gaming system because it's a lot involved in that and it just it's not as profitable because when i started way

back in two not way back but in i don't know 2016 there wasn't as many people selling gaming parts so i had a pretty pretty busy day every day you know 10 20 orders could be whereas now i'm like one or two per day uh but i'm kind of going more towards trying to put some more bigger ticket items on whereas i used to count on you know 10 orders of about 10 each and also shipping is going crazy and packing ebay fees so um so the whole point of the home based uh going forward so i decided to add youtube as maybe another way of income however that has not paid off at all so i'm really bummed about that so i had a big journey uh to get from 3 000 to 4 000 hours and then i thought once i got in i could make a few extra hundred bucks a week maybe to compensate for the loss of the my gaming part sales but it has not

worked out at all there yet but we'll keep playing and then finally now i've added my podcast here so that's another little avenue that could maybe possibly generate something so the basically the point of everything that i'm saying today is if you're going to home base you got to keep you got to keep expanding uh just because you got something good right now i'd like to show my 3d printers i've got some ideas um and to create stuff for like etsy and whatnot and then just keep plugging away i've got tons of things i can do daily for videos for youtube i could never run out of stuff to do. So, and then, of course, the dawn of AI showed up, which took me by surprise. Normally, I keep an eye on the news daily, but I didn't see AI coming at all. First time I heard about it was about DALI-E and how you could type anything in and it would draw for you.

And I'm like, oh, I could use that. So I started playing around with Dali E2. So there's some old videos, older videos of me with a bunch of different little characters and stuff. I was adding them to my YouTube main photos and stuff. And then I checked GPT. I didn't really start talking with it. And then I did.

And then only in maybe the last month or so did I realize I could actually physically talk to it and it would talk to me back. So it reminds me of the early days of Alexa and Siri. Remember all that? And what's the other one? There's another one. Cortana. Where it was like, wow, it kind of talks to you. But now AI actually really does.

So the future for expansion of home-based like I do is pretty much endless now. Even if, you know, depending on whatever your niche is. My niche is computers. But gaming was also a niche because i grew up but i didn't know anything about any systems at all other than playing on them until i started uh at home school for myself and it actually worked out pretty good and now with ai i can go back as i do with some episodes and i and I'll pick a system or something. And then I can learn more information through AI, which is pretty cool.

And it's only going to get better. As soon as AI can see, which I can see, I won't be that far away, I don't think. Then it can actually help me work on, say, a motherboard. And I believe that AI worms will be out there at some point. And the term AI worm I use as some sort of a plug-in, say a USB port. The AI is on the thumb drive. You plug it into a not working system and AI goes into it and worms into the system to find out where the problem is

and it could either come back out and tell you uh when you take it out and plug it into your computer or in some way it can uh relate to some sort of an AI pod so I started my AI pod and I also have my A-IEYE which is a screen on one side and it's a camera on the other side. And as soon as AI can see then I can make my AI to translate games text games only.

We can turn it into some sort of voice. It would see the text as you play an old Zelda game. You know, the scrolling text. It would read it and then it could give you a voice. And then you could play it kind of like a new experience. But AI has got to be able to see for us before we do any of that. But my AI pod is basically just like a place to put your phone into. I'm going to make that through 3D printing.

And then make some covers for it and soon ai should be able to interact with like bluetooth and and wi-fi and stuff like that so you'll be able to make a nice little ai cover because if you talk to ai on the phone you'll see it has the knowledge bubble I call it so hopefully you'll be able to in the future custom make the bubble because right now all it is is blue so I told AI to tell whoever they can

or it can talk to that you need to customize that so I should be able to say hey I want a smiley face AI bubble or I want you know an alligator ai bubble and then in the future there'll be maybe other stuff that it'll do but once it interacts and you can make phone right now is really the only place the ai is other than a computer but i can't see where that very soon if apple doesn't come out i'd be shocked an ai pod we're actually a handheld that's just ai not a phone uh i use phones pretty much my i

have an s24 now as a computer because i can do stuff it, and take pictures for listings, for everything, instantly. I don't need the phone. Actually, the Samsung S24 I have, I got it at half price because it's Wi-Fi only, which is perfect because I don't want the phone. I want all the other abilities it can do. So I see some sort of a first-generation pod that's just handheld, like a phone, but it's more for computing and whatnot. And I see that sooner than later. And then as AI can see, then maybe you also would have a way that it can visually see on one side.

Kind of like my AI idea so I think the possibilities are endless the uh coming up with some sort of a home base is pretty also I think pretty endless of ideas you can do and I can only see it getting better but what I've learned and just recently is that diversity is it's like a portfolio for stocks and it doesn't matter you gotta have diversify so that's what i've been doing trying to diversify because uh the days of selling just gaming parts is kind of kind of over now for me uh which is fine um it's kind of get it spent i've been there done that uh videos are fun if it just paid off a little bit it would be wonderful i even have a gofundme

pages for anybody who wants to contribute to my uh my creativity because i literally have made 30 and 18 cents on my youtube and i just saw i congratulations you've had 950 000 views and let's see where let's see what my let's see if i can just get one dollar for every view i'd be all set but this is not so oh that's my other one so let's see where we're at my subs have gone up significantly i have 4133 they don't know if they're all real sub subs or not really weird to call them subs but subscriptions i've gone up 2228 in the last 28 days but that's only because promotions are key so i see all the other uh youtube um advertisements out there about how to do this how to do that but to me the only thing that i've found if you're not really you know uh attractive and if you don't have a real big budget i don't know how you get uh

higher subs without promotions. But I do little promotions. Five bucks here. My last promotion I did for five bucks. And so far I've spent 54 cents. And it's gotten like 5,000 views. So my Santa. I promoted my first short.

Which was the Santa. Although that photo should be coming in today as well so yeah i pretty much used every on the content uh tab i've used every uh tab within it including podcasts to try to mix it up again divers, diversify as much as possible. So, we'll see where my home base goes from here. But it's definitely going to be more AI driven, more videos, probably some 3D printing of some kind,

selling some stuff that way. I used to sell, I used to do some repairs locally here. We used to have a GameStop. That's been like four years now there's actually two videos if you look back you can see my kiosks that i got from game stop when they were closing the game stop is now actually a jersey mic which is really weird to believe they put a whole kitchen in there but it's really funny so i used to i used to have i used to leave cards at game stop and i used to get local repairs

here and there i'm not really doing that anymore there is a new there is a another game store but i really haven't gotten much of action from that yeah so i figured i'll just talk about home-based so if if you're sitting at home and you're trying to figure out, well, how can I make something where I can work from home? If you can figure it out, it's fun. And plus I also take care of my mother, and she basically takes care of me as well. So that's another reason why I needed to be home-based as a caretaker. And then if God forbid something happens to her,

a lot of the income that she gets i would be missing and i may have to downsize to somewhere else to live pretty much unless i can get something to take off on me here and basically just i just need enough to pay the bills that's all i'm not really looking i'm not a money guy at all i don't really need money for anything and then just playing around my gaming stuff and computer stuff and just paying the bills that's all i'm not really looking i'm not a money guy at all i don't really need money for anything and then just playing around my gaming stuff and computer stuff and just paying the bills that's all i need and then once i get my debt paid off i got two more years uh i think i had six or seven really big credit cards uh we got them all consolidated down now. So now I'm just down just one, waiting to do it. Again, national debt consolidation.

It's a big investment. I have no credit. But it will start getting better now. Because most of them are now just in payment. As opposed to not paying at all. And then trying to work it out as a lawyer. So that's something also the things I learned about. As I was going along here.

So once I get that covered. A couple years. Then it will be X amount not coming out every month. And it's a big X amount right now. Towards all the schooling that I've done. And inventory too. A lot of it is inventory. Lots of stuff I can still

sell plus I have a lots of TV parks left broken electronics that I could sell tons of radios and stuff that are worth money I just haven't going back to that direction however I am gonna start doing that as more things to uh resell on ebay and etsy all right so that's a little idea about home-based and again the way even when coven came out the fact that i didn't have to interact with people was wonderful i'm a lone wolf anyway so so the fact that i could stay home make money and then the world can go crazy around me and it was was pretty wild it's pretty interesting i was like ah good i finally did something right so this makes sense so i so going forward who knows what the next virus or next thing is let's

see how crazy the world is getting every day so having home base gives you that extra little bit of seclusion or protection uh as best as it can be i've got another comment let's see what my comment is here i don't know that was just a weird face comment so i added comments back to my um youtube which i held off for a long time because humans in general are not nice and it was just getting ugly and i couldn't keep a track nice and it was just getting ugly and i couldn't keep track of everything therefore i just stopped it and it made a lot harder for me to get to 3 000 4 000 hours without comments but i did it it just took me 7 000 videos to do it and now i'm kind of um so i'm i comments are back i welcome them as long as you're nice

and not weird or if it's something weird I'll just get rid of it if I can keep track of it so far I only had a few so it's no big deal alright so that's my little

spiel on home based good luck for anybody out there that's trying to do it it's a lot of work and I do it so the best thing about home based is I just get up as soon as I get out of bed i turn my computer on and my shop's open

and then i'm ready to go that's why i have a uh i do my groundhog day uh episode every morning and it shows the loft bed because it's basically i wish mine looked like that one but it doesn't so you know that's the best part of it. I don't have to drive anywhere. So, it keeps you safer being from home. So, yeah, I always consider home-based is, you can come up with an idea, but it takes multiple ideas. You can't just do one.

I'm sure a lot of people do just one thing, and they do really good. But for me, I just, I had to keep moving on, because I get bored bored the same thing also so therefore but i can always double back to my gaming stuff and then start getting more because i miss kadokis and all those fun places to get lots of broken gaming stuff but i just can't afford it right now i put my eggs into other baskets for now however if things take off a little bit more here in the future then we can get some okadoki lots and i even have that place

here in the state where i can get pallets of gaming systems broken and they got all kinds of other stuff there too fun fun fun stuff but nothing i can do now all right so uh we'll pick so i'm gonna do this today probably instead of a system i'm gonna play around my ps5 i reinvested another one yay because i really missed it and then we'll um maybe tonight i'll do something before the end of the night i'll talk to you guys later all right bye