This post exists to clarify something that’s easy to avoid talking about, but important to be honest about.
Steve Flips isn’t a content business in the traditional sense. It isn’t designed to “grow an audience” first and work out monetisation later. And it isn’t here to promise results or sell a system.
So where does the income come from — and what role does this site actually play?
What Steve Flips Is (and Isn’t)
Steve Flips exists as a decision log.
It documents:
- what I’m buying
- how I’m structuring resale businesses
- what worked
- what didn’t
- and what changed my thinking
It is not:
- a coaching platform
- a course funnel
- an advice blog
- or a play to monetise attention
That distinction matters, because it sets realistic expectations — for readers and for me.
Primary Income Comes From the Businesses
The main source of income is not the content.
It’s the businesses the content documents:
- vintage clothing
- collectables
- golf clothing and equipment
These businesses already:
- generate cash
- justify the time spent running them
- and cover real-world costs
Steve Flips doesn’t replace that income. It improves it indirectly by forcing clarity, reducing repeated mistakes, and making it easier to see what’s actually happening.
Even if nobody ever watched a video or read a post, that benefit alone would still make it worthwhile.
Covering Costs: Quiet, Low-Friction Income
That said, the site and channel do have costs — hosting, domains, software, tools.
Covering those costs doesn’t require turning Steve Flips into a monetisation machine.
The most sensible approach is quiet leverage:
- occasional affiliate links
- only for tools I actually use
- referenced naturally inside real posts
This isn’t a strategy. It’s a side-effect.
It’s enough to:
- cover running costs
- reduce friction
- without changing the tone or intent of the site
If those links disappeared tomorrow, the content would still stand on its own.
That’s the test.
Optional Income Only When It’s Obvious
I’m deliberately not building products in advance.
If, over time, I keep explaining the same decisions — or people keep asking for the same clarifications — then something small and focused might make sense.
Not a course.
Not coaching.
Not a launch.
Possibly:
- a short document
- a framework
- a checklist
- a way of capturing thinking that already exists
Only if it feels obvious.
Only if it removes friction.
Only if it doesn’t create obligation.
Until then, nothing needs to be built.
What This Isn’t Trying to Do
Steve Flips is explicitly not relying on:
- ads
- YouTube monetisation
- SEO traffic
- affiliate roundups
- selling advice
- selling access to me
Those models:
- create pressure
- introduce performance expectations
- and often don’t pay reliably
They also pull the work back toward being “that guy” — something I’ve deliberately stepped away from.
The Real Role of This Site
The best way to think about Steve Flips is this:
- 80–90% of income comes from running the businesses
- 5–10% comes from quiet leverage around them
- 0–5% might come from optional future artifacts
The site isn’t a revenue engine.
It’s a force multiplier:
- clearer decisions
- fewer dead ends
- better use of time
- and optional income paths that don’t demand attention
A Useful Rule Going Forward
This is the sentence I keep coming back to:
If Steve Flips ever needs to make money to justify its existence, it has already failed.
Its job is to:
- document reality
- preserve thinking
- and improve decision-making
Income comes from using it, not pushing it.
Closing
Steve Flips doesn’t need to “become” anything else.
If it:
- makes the businesses easier to run
- reduces friction
- and quietly pays for itself over time
…it’s doing its job.
Everything beyond that is optional.
This way of thinking sits alongside other deliberate boundaries about tone, publishing, and intent that were locked in at the same time.
This post documents how I think about income, leverage, and sustainability while running resale businesses. Any changes to that thinking will be recorded separately over time.
