Avdi Grimm kicks off a new series of posts (that I’m quite excited about) on the various parts that go into a “banana stand” business by deftly wielding a classic Arrested Development gag and telling the tale of how he got his stand started:

I’m a software developer by trade. I’ve slung code either as an employee or as an independent consultant for over two decades. But around ten years ago, I started selling e-books about programming. At the time it was a way to recoup the time and energy I had sunk into researching conference talks, as well as a way to expand on the topics of those talks.

E-books expanded to screencasts, and then to courses. I found myself with a diversified product income that sometimes rivaled or even exceeded what I could expect from a developer’s salary.

As a result, gaps between gigs haven’t felt like “unemployment” for a long time. Instead, they are opportunities to work on my education business. Recently, a major gig I’d been looking forward to fell through at the last second. Once I worked through the disappointment, I was like: “welp, there’s always money in the banana stand!”

The first component of your banana stand: a mailing list