‘Financial Freedom‘ in a way has become a buzzword with different people giving a different meaning to the phrase. In this day and age when the whole world is wrestling with a pandemic of unprecedented proportion, and with daily reports of people losing jobs across the world, the understanding of the concept of Financial Freedom has become ever important.
We Interviewed Pardeep Goyal, the founder of CashOverflow, to understand what experts think about the current situation. We also tried to understand what he thinks about Financial Independence.
Pardeep, Thank you for talking with us. Tell us something about your Entrepreneurial journey..
I started my entrepreneurship after quitting from my IT job in 2013 for a startup but that startup failed. Then I started my personal finance blog CashOverlfow after losing $20,000 in my first startup.
I tried to understand the pain points of my audience and then resolved them through my blog. I have grown my hobby blog into a powerhouse for generating multiple income streams.
This led me to become financially independent and get enough time for my family and hobbies.
What were the initial challenges that you faced in your endeavor?
The initial challenge was to pay my bills because my business was shut and I had no motivation to go back to the job.
So, I started with freelance writing to pay my monthly bills and keep on experimenting with my blog.
When my blog started making money, 80% of my income was coming from affiliate marketing. But the problem with the personal finance niche (especially in India) is that financial product offers are not consistent.
If I was making $1000 in a month from a banking product campaign and it could be zero next month.
I expanded my business and started promoting global products that helped me optimize my income. I also collaborated with different brands but always ensured that the product should be valuable to my audience.
Tell us more about your venture CashOverflow?
CashOverflow is one of the top personal finance blogs in India. CashOverflow won the best blog award in 2017.
Apart from that, I also educate people to manage their personal finances to achieve financial independence.
We know the significance of investing. Especially, in products which have compounding properties. Tell us more about the importance of investing early in our lives.
When you start investing at an early age, you get more time for your money to grow with the power of compounding. The more time you have, the more your money will exponentially increase.
Secondly, when you start early, you can invest in high risk-high rewards instruments like investing in stocks, that help you grow money faster and in the worst-case scenario, if such investments make losses, you will have long time horizon to wait for your investments to recover.
The Corona Pandemic has hit most of the Brick and Mortar businesses. However, several online businesses have remained immune to this pandemic to a certain extent. Do you think Online businesses is the way ahead?
Yes. Online businesses are immune because you are not physically bound to do your business. You don’t have to physically go somewhere to open your store, or your office.
Secondly, you are not limited to a particular region as compared to traditional businesses. The whole world is your market, you are not restricted to one place, you can sell anything to anyone living anywhere in the world.
Although, online e-commerce businesses have got affected to some extent due to lockdown around the world and deliveries hindered. But info products didn’t get much impact due to this pandemic situation across the globe.
What according to you is Financial freedom? How can one attain this in this day and age?
Financial Freedom is doing what you love without worrying about earning money. This means you have multiple passive income sources that fulfill your needs without your active participation. You can utilize your time in doing what you love the most.
Attaining Financial Freedom in what time and age are very subjective. It varies from person to person depending on the present financial situation as well as how much fire he has to achieve the goal.
But I can say that if you are determined about your goal and consistent in your efforts, you can achieve it at an early stage. If I give you my own example, I achieved Financial Freedom at the age of 35.
