If you’ve never been here, then everything looks as it should. Feel free to skip this post and move on to the next article. However, if you’ve visited the site before, you might notice some big changes. It’s gone through a rebranding, and if you give me a few minutes, I’ll tell you why it happened.

In the next post, I’ll tell you about the trips, traps, and stumbles I made while converting to the Bumbling Millionaire.

It Begins Like This…

In February 2017, I started Building Income, a blog about commercial real estate and personal finance. In the crammed world of personal finance blogs, I thought those two subjects went together like peanut butter and jelly. Now, I might be the only one who thought like that, but commercial real estate helped me resolve my issues with personal finance. I wanted to tell the world about it and help people who might be struggling like I did.

The blog (along with a non-fiction book I was co-authoring) helped me rediscover the excitement of writing. How I lost the thrill is a story for another day, but what Building Income afforded me was a platform to share the stories of how I financially turned my life around.

The site was initially branded that way so I could run with the tagline “building your income with your building’s income.” I thought it was a clever turn of phrase, but looking at it now, it’s a bit pedestrian to have fallen so in love with it.

I mention this because someone squatted on the URL buildingincome.com. If you entered the URL, it went to one of those irritating “buy this domain now” landing pages. It still does. Blech.

the old logo. right away, you can see how it was very focused on the commercial real estate aspect.

Unfortunately, I was stuck on that blog name but didn’t want to overpay for the right to acquire it. I could have gotten buildingincome.net, but the idea of have a dot-net was unappealing. Even though I hadn’t written a single thing, I somehow thought I was better than a dot-net identifier.

Therefore, I did the next best thing and purchased building-income.com. Take that URL squatters! I beat you with a simple dash. Ha. Ha. I really showed them.

When I first started the blog, I had no idea how big that little dash would become.

Whenever I talked about the blog, I would say “Building Income,” but would immediately clarify that the web address was “building dash income.”

Lame.

For such a diminutive symbol, it turned into a royal pain in the ass, but it was only symptomatic of a much larger problem.

You see, the Building Income brand was too niche. It was supposed to be about helping people get out of a financial quagmire. However, it seemed too focused on commercial real estate—a message that most folks aren’t interested in. And getting beyond that was tough with “Building” as part of the brand.

Which is when The Side Hustle started.

The Evolution of a Writer

The Side Hustle is a crime fiction novel about the murder of a personal finance blogger. I’m not going to delve too deep into the history of that book. If you’re interested, you can read a couple posts about it—the links are below. One is shorter and on this site while a longer one is over at my crime fiction website.

Do the Hustle!
Why I Wrote The Side Hustle

The book was released on January 4th, 2019 and was originally intended to be a standalone. Since then that book has evolved into a series known as the 509 Crimes Stories (509 is the area code for Eastern Washington).

Building Income was a shot in the arm for my writing, but it fell behind as my crime fiction writing took off.

After releasing The Side Hustle, I also wrote three cozy mysteries and co-authored a four-book crime fiction series with Frank Zafiro.

My first love in writing is crime fiction. I wake up early every morning and write for a couple hours. (In fact, I woke up today at 4:47 to write) Creating characters and stories that people love is a dream come true. If I ever miss that morning experience, it feels as if I didn’t see my friends.

When Building Income got left behind, there were so many things I left unsaid. I’d never talked about my experience owning a laundromat that cost me $60,000. I hadn’t shared the tale of investing in bar that cost me more.

The Bumbling Millionaire

The idea of those non-fiction pieces brought me back to Building Income and the fact that I dropped the ball on it. One of books I recently reread was Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I think it was the eighth or ninth time I’ve read it.

I’ve learned that rereading a book allows you to notice new things. That’s what happened during my latest time through Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I couldn’t wait to share what I found. I even wrote a blog post about it before I rebranded (see the link below).

Five Business Books Every (Indie) Author Should Read

The nugget I discovered was in the section where Kiyosaki discussed how the rich create assets. He defined assets as being real estate, stocks, bonds, notes, and intellectual property. It was last that caught my attention.

Intellectual property! Well, damn. Among other things, that’s books and short stories and blogs.

Blogs! Was I acting like the wealthy by creating something and walking away from it?

No. Not at all.

I’d created an asset (Building Income) and gotten a little traction with it, then dropped it to go write books.

Did I have to do that? Is being a blogger mutually exclusive from a real estate broker and a crime fiction author? Couldn’t I do all three? The idea of a blog being an asset charged me up.

If a blog was like a book, then I should treat it as such. That’s when the idea of rebranding became a major issue. Books get new covers all the time. They can also be retitled.

I needed to do something different because Building Income wasn’t going to get me where I wanted to go. Especially not with that stupid dash in the middle of it.

That’s when I bumbled my way into a brand.

If you’re new to the blog, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.
If you’ve returned to find a new coat of paint, please let me know that, too!