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Join host Kevin Griffin as he dives into his recent interview on David Giard's Technology and Friends show. In this episode, Kevin discusses the origins of the Multithreaded Income podcast, his history with personal finance, and the journey of creating multiple income streams for technologists. Hear stories from guests, including tech consultants and SaaS product creators, and explore the benefits of building a solid financial foundation. Don’t miss this insightful conversation about leveraging tech skills for financial independence!
Technology and Friends: https://www.youtube.com/ @technologyandfriends2860
David on Twitter: https://x.com/davidgiard
Technology and Friends: https://www.youtube.com/ @technologyandfriends2860
David on Twitter: https://x.com/davidgiard
Creators & Guests
What is Multithreaded Income Podcast?
In the "Multithreaded Income Podcast," host Kevin Griffin navigates the nuanced landscape of generating multiple income streams as a technologist. Aimed at professionals who wish to diversify their revenue while maintaining a focus on technology, this podcast dives deep into unconventional strategies, untapped opportunities, and actionable advice.
It's time for the multi
threaded income podcast.
We're like insurance for a
turbulent tech landscape.
I'm your host, Kevin Griffin.
Join me as I chat with people all around
the industry who are using their skills
to build multiple threads of income.
Let us support you in your career
by joining our discord at mti.
to slash discord.
Now let's get started.
Kevin Griffin: Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the
multithreaded income podcast.
Today's something a little bit difference.
A couple of weeks ago, I did
an interview with my friend.
David yard on his show,
technology and friends.
And if you've never watched technology
and friends, he's up to episode
like 800 something, something.
And you should really go take a look.
It's a great overview of just the people
in tech over the past several years.
And I've been lucky enough to
be on a show a number of times.
And this recent time I talked
about multithreaded income, kind
of where the idea came from.
And some of the folks that we've
had on the podcast and where I think
it might be going in the future.
So I want to invite you to listen to the
episode here in your podcast, viewer.
And when you're done.
Do me a favor, go give David a
subscribe or say thanks, David, for,
for doing the show and hopefully.
I'll be back again on his show
in the future, or maybe I'll have
him here on multithread income.
But I hope you enjoy this.
I'll see you later.
David Giard: My guest
today is Kevin Griffin.
Kevin, how are you my friend?
Kevin Griffin: I am doing well.
It's a Friday.
So the weekend is coming and
I've already had one cup of
coffee, so I'm doing all right.
David Giard: It's funny how your
life seems to parallel my life.
I've had one cup of coffee.
It's Friday year.
I'm looking forward to the weekend.
And I remember that, uh, you and
I became MVPs on the same day.
We joined INETA on the same day.
We became officers of
INETA on the same day.
Uh, we've been just, we've been great.
Following each other
around for over a decade.
Kevin Griffin: So if all things
work out in my favor, I will be
renewed from my 15th MVP award.
Oh my goodness.
Beginning of July.
So you could have been in.
15 time MVP, David, if you
potentially maybe up to the court.
David Giard: Yeah.
And I was stripped of my MVP
when I joined Microsoft 10
Kevin Griffin: years ago.
David Giard: So that means that you and I
have known each other for over 15 years.
That's, uh, that's amazing.
It's been a while.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah.
David Giard: Uh, and so I understand
you have a new project or relatively
new project, this podcast.
Let's talk about it.
Kevin Griffin: Sure.
Uh, so the name of the podcast
is multi threaded income.
And it's not your typical tech podcasts.
Um, I have always had kind of a,
uh, interest in personal finance and
building a strong financial foundation
for myself and for my family and just
through casual conversations with
other technologists find I'm not alone.
In these sort of thoughts and
conversations, uh, long, long time
ago, I used to have a, another
podcast called two for real dudes,
talk about personal finance, just
for everyone who is interested.
And that was fun.
And we could always talk about
that later if we want to, but we
ended up killing that project.
And I always wanted to keep that
conversation going, but since I live
and breathe tech and I'm surrounded
by technologists and we, uh, I have
seen the job market kind of deflating.
And in the past year or two, I always
thought I really like to do a podcast
where I talk to people about how
to use their amazing skill sets to
build multiple streams of income.
And.
When tossing around ideas for, for a
title, it's like, you know, it's kind
of like multi threaded programming.
Like I I'm one person, but I'm
doing multiple things and that's
where multi threaded income came
from was like, Oh, this is a very
tech centric way of explaining
what it is we're trying to achieve.
David Giard: Okay.
And, uh, just to set some context,
you are an independent consultant.
That's a trainer.
That's, that's your job.
Kevin Griffin: Absolutely.
Yeah.
Val, uh, actually I just had my
anniversary 13 years ago, 13 years ago.
I went independent and
haven't looked back.
David Giard: Wow.
Congratulations.
When did you start this podcast?
Kevin Griffin: I started the
podcast in September of 2023.
Okay.
And you're
David Giard: releasing what, uh, once
a month, once a week, what's a day?
We,
Kevin Griffin: I try to do once a week,
uh, but day job and stuff keeps me busy.
So sometimes it's once every two weeks.
Um, I try not to keep myself to a
strict schedule just because that's
just another thing to have to deal with.
Uh, it also depends on
interview availability and,
uh, And all that good stuff.
But you know, if everything was
right, it would be once a week.
David Giard: You mentioned interview.
Is that, I mean, you have guests on
the show and you ask them questions
like, like I'm doing here with you.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah, I try to, I have
two different formats I'm playing with.
One is the typical interview style
where I talk to someone in the
community, who's kind of doing
what the podcast is focused on.
They have one or more.
Threads of income that
they're running with.
Uh, and then the second format is
kind of a, just a topic conversation.
So to give you a good example, uh, I
have a friend, we'll call him Sean, cause
that's why I call him on the podcast.
And Sean asks a series of questions
about what, what it's like to go
independent, to become a consultant.
And I'll take one of his
questions and I'll just talk
about it for 15, 20 minutes.
So, Like, how should you incorporate?
Should you have insurance?
What type of contract should you have?
Um, and the, the goal is really just
to provide as much information and
value to the listener as possible.
David Giard: Tell me about the
relationship between this podcast and
your, your last one, Two Frugal Dudes.
Yeah.
Kevin Griffin: So Two Frugal Dudes started
as A conversation with, um, my friend,
Sean Marin and not really just not the
same Sean, Sean's a very common name.
Right.
So, so Sean Marin and I would go
out after user group meetings and
we discovered that we both really
had an interest in personal finance.
So we would talk about.
And investing, we would
talk about debt payoff.
We would talk about just
techniques that we had learned.
And the ultimate goal of all this
is just to have a solid financial
foundation for, for my family.
Um, and not be beholden to a day
job for, My means, um, and one thing
you learn when you're having these
conversations, have you ever gone to
a conference and you've had a hallway
track so much gets lost to the table,
like there's so much good conversation.
It just gets lost to the table.
And.
We decided, Hey, let's, that's
David Giard: a good phrase.
I think you're saying that we walk
away and we haven't captured that.
We haven't internalized it.
We haven't shared it with other people.
Kevin Griffin: It's good for me.
It's good for Sean, but the
value of that conversation can't
be shared with anyone else.
So the table is the only thing that I'm
going to, I'm going to steal that phrase.
David Giard: Thank you for that.
Kevin Griffin: That's fine.
So we started recording a podcast and.
We actually, you know, in a very small
way exploded into, um, a somewhat
popular personal finance podcast.
And we were focusing on everyone, like
anyone who had money was a target for.
Our podcast.
And we, we talked on a variety of
subjects, but you hit this point with a
podcast where it's like, all right, it's
either a labor of love, or it needs to
start putting some food in my kid's mouth.
And,
David Giard: we,
Kevin Griffin: well, it could be both.
And it's like, all right, the
podcast needs to start earning for
itself to justify its existence.
And we were looking at various ways
to try to give more value in exchange
for a little bit of money in there.
And we're trying to do
this in a non sleazy way.
Cause there's a lot of sleazy ways
to take money from people and not
really give them the value in return.
And that's just not how I was raised.
It, I was raised to, you know, it
is fine to charge someone money for
something, but you need to make sure
they get something for their money.
And when you have a name like two
frugal dudes, it is really difficult.
And I learned this, you know,
just a hard lesson learned.
It's really difficult to sell
things to people who are basically
a target market of frugality.
So, uh, so eventually we.
Well, we made probably a
couple of hundred bucks.
It was enough to pay the
accountant basically.
And we ended up shutting down the
entire podcast as Sean went off and
he's doing amazing things right now.
I've gone off, I'm doing
all right for myself.
I'm not complaining, but I still
had this ambition to really want
to talk about personal finance.
And.
As I mentioned earlier, like the job
market kind of shrinking and there's ample
opportunity for technologists to go off
and start using their skillset to do other
things and not be beholden to the day job.
And that's kind of where multi threaded
income sprung up was, can we talk about
these concepts, but really niche it down
to technologists and software development.
David Giard: Oh, tell me about some
of the interesting things that you've,
uh, you dove into during the last.
Nine months or so.
Kevin Griffin: Uh, so we talked to
a variety of different people on the
podcast and there's several different
buckets that we kind of fill in this,
uh, this term multithreaded income.
So the most obvious one is
really independent consulting.
It's the, the people who take one of two
different courses where they're either a
freelancer to begin with, they're working
their day job and then they do some mood
lighting or independent freelancing,
uh, After hours or on weekends.
And we will talk to people there
about just how do you find your gigs?
How much do you figure out how to charge?
What are some of the issues that
run in you run into when you have a
day job, that's your main priority.
And then you have these
secondary jobs that you're doing.
Um, Then there's some people that do
the full independent consulting route.
They just, they either have lost their
job and they decide this is the way to go.
I'll just go independent.
Uh, or they quit their job and
decided to go fully independent.
That's a whole bunch of stress
and things you're trying to
get going right off the bat.
Um, and it's a, it's a journey.
It's a ebbs and flows just in terms of
your funnel and who you're doing work for.
Um, We have some people that have
gone off to create their own products.
So their own SAS software as
a service or actual software
products that you, you install.
And it's fun talking about the stories
of how these different ideas come to be.
Because usually it's.
Uh, it starts as someone trying to scratch
their own niche that they have a problem.
They build a product to solve their
problem, realize, Hey, I can take this
product and sell it to other people.
And, uh, there's guests
with various levels of.
Success with that.
Some are just very early in that process.
And some have crossed into the
million dollar mark for the
business just over, over time.
Um, we have done talks with people who,
uh, run conferences, uh, as businesses
and how some of the dynamics of that,
uh, we've talked to book authors.
We've talked to course creators and I keep
saying we it's like, it's me, but it's.
The community has you and
your audience for the journey.
Yeah.
But we're really open to talking
to anyone who's making money.
I just recently did an interview with
a very nice young lady who was at
the beginning of the, um, uh, weed
dispensary business and actually
building a product to that and seeing,
all right, there's some hardships here.
Let's build something for an industry
that technically didn't exist.
Yeah.
At the beginning and then had
the build and, uh, and grow.
And it's fun.
It's a lot of fun talking to these,
uh, these types of folks because
they're solving problems and they're
eventually building these into.
Hopefully businesses that can go
run by themselves and they're just
collecting the passive income from it.
David Giard: Yeah, I like, I like
how you threw in that qualifier.
Technically didn't exist.
We businesses existed for a long time.
It's just been legal in some states.
There's no point of sales system
Kevin Griffin: for the guy on the corner.
David Giard: The ultimate
entrepreneur, I think.
Uh, tell me, let's tell me where they're
guests who I'm scrolling through and
I recognize a few of these names.
I know, uh, Jamie Wright and I know,
um, Oh, Brian Gorman and, uh, Stephen
Cleary, lots of good people here.
But, uh,
Kevin Griffin: uh, Jamie Wright
was a very good, uh, episode.
Jamie Wright in particular
is just an amazing human.
Uh, he's one of my favorite
people in the world.
Um, Jamie.
What I love about his conversation was we
went into it kind of with this nuance of.
Well, let's talk about the
business aspect of it and the,
Hey, this needs to feed you.
And Jamie is very much about, look, I
would gladly do any of this for free
and just be, I'm getting paid just
because I happen to be getting paid,
but I would be perfectly happy doing all
this work just for the fun and the, he
called it the art of building software
David Giard: for companies that building
software, he would do that for free.
Okay.
Kevin Griffin: Well for his,
uh, his own, his own products.
Um, I see.
So there's the, there's the means,
and then he's, he likes doing all
the other things and he's got it.
I think finding himself in this
position now where he's able to work
on and get paid for the thing that
he really loves and enjoys doing.
That's right.
Why not both?
Yeah.
So Jamie was definitely
a great conversation.
David Giard: That's awesome.
I actually feel the same way when
I became a technical evangelist.
I got, I got this job where I was
speaking at conferences and writing
and connecting with the community.
I'm like, wow, I did this for years for
free and now I'm getting paid for it.
Kevin Griffin: What a country.
I still, uh, don't get
paid for that part of it.
I still do that.
Well, neither do I
David Giard: anymore.
That was only about three or four
years that I had my dream job.
How many people ever have their dream job?
So, uh, so now who else?
So you've had, uh, We're some
other interesting guests.
Kevin Griffin: Let's see.
Uh, if I go down, um, there was a
conversation with, uh, Lucas Herman
or Herman, he, um, he is, I actually
found him on, someone sent me an
article and it was about a, uh,
stage timer, a timer product that was
making, um, like five figures a month
and, um, I was like, all right, this
is type of guy I like to talk to.
Got found a mutual friend of mine and
Lucas's and, um, we got connected.
We did the podcast and Lucas,
uh, really interesting guy.
He was a developer and was doing something
around, um, as like conferences and
stuff, and people were having problems
with stage timers just to keep track of.
Of time and different notes.
And there was no industry standard
for that, that type of product.
Uh, so Lucas built a proof of
concept and, uh, someone's like, yes,
totally, I will pay you for this.
And it's just kind of grew up from there.
So at its.
Core.
It's just a timer.
It's keeping track of time.
And then there's all these
bells and whistles on top of it.
And Lucas makes a pretty good living
with him as the sole developer.
Uh, his wife is involved as well
with the, uh, with the project, but
like they're doing pretty well for
just what you would call a timer.
And it was one of those
overnight successes that took.
A long time.
Like we, we were seeing the end of
it, but we talked a lot about the
process of getting to that point.
And now he's out, he's going out and
he's starting a second product right now.
Um, and it's fun to kind of watch people
in the middle of their journey and seeing
they they're getting success now, and
they're just going to get more success.
Uh, if they keep down this road.
David Giard: Well, interesting.
And I imagine that, uh, on that particular
podcast, I haven't listened to that
episode, but you're talking less about
the technology and how he built it
and more about how he's monetizing it.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah.
We're really interested in
the business of software.
Um, there's, there's plenty of
crap out there talking about
the tech and the tech to me, Is
interesting, but also really boring.
Like the implement, no one ever pays
because they care that something's
written in TypeScript or C sharp
or, or are they using next GS?
Or are they using, uh, um, Laravel?
Like no one really cares about that.
They care about care about the problem
David Giard: itself.
Kevin Griffin: Exactly.
And that's what people pay for.
So I'm so much more interested
in the, Hey, I built this,
uh, little product and it's.
Useful than me.
It's useful to other people.
How do you price it accordingly?
How do you get feedback
from your initial customers?
How do you find your initial customers?
That's just so many little issues that
like developers, we don't like that stuff.
Most developers don't want to go out
and try to market to other people and
try to get them to sell their thing.
They much rather.
To an extent, just put something up
open source and say, you know what?
I don't think this is very good,
but here it is for everyone.
David Giard: That's that
imposter syndrome thing.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah.
David Giard: You mentioned
earlier on that, uh, you wanted
to monetize this podcast.
How's that happening?
Kevin Griffin: Uh, at the moment it's
not, uh, but it's, it's a long, it's a.
When hearts and minds first, and then
I think a multithreaded income is
more positioned to be good for some
sort of coaching program, um, which.
We're trying to build up a
community first of just people who
are interested in the subject and
helping them through their journeys.
And then eventually everyone hits this
point where they just need more help.
They need more, more
hands on, deeper advice.
And that's a great opportunity
for coaching and coaching
is kind of the first.
Like level up, there's group coaching
where you just get people into quote
unquote masterminds Where they can
talk amongst themselves And you're the
spiritual guide for for their journey
Um people i've gotten a lot of value
out of stuff like that people Just
in general, give value out of that.
There's also built in accountability.
So if you say I'm going to have X, Y,
and Z done by the end of next week, if we
come to the end of next week and you're
not done, I'm going to, I'm going to fuss
at you and say, well, what's the problem?
Why, why didn't you get that done?
You're holding yourself back by
not accomplishing these tasks.
Uh, there's a level up from that.
And it's just in a solo coaching
where it's one on one with
a, with a different person.
Uh, there's ample opportunity
for things like courses.
Uh, I have two or three course ideas.
I like to do focused around multi thread
income and just starting one of these
side threads, um, whatever it might be.
And like consulting is a good one for me.
I've been an innovative
consultant for 13 years.
I can talk very fluidly about
anything dealing with that.
Um, I have.
A plethora of friends who have done
the same thing, kind of bounce ideas
off of, and I think I could build
a very good structured course in
how to get started down that path.
Um, the, but the big reason I haven't
gone down that path is I don't have,
I need the audience to sell to.
So the podcast is about just
selling the dream and finding
people that are living the dream and
showing that the dream isn't out.
It's a dream, but it's not outside
the scope of your capabilities as.
As a normal person.
Um, so let's sell that dream.
Let's get the community engaged and,
and built up and then start offering
better products to that community
to help them on their journey.
David Giard: Okay.
So building the audience first
and then you'll start marketing to
that audience once they're hooked.
I'm looking at this,
um, multithreadedincome.
com, which is the domain that you have.
It's a horrible website,
Kevin Griffin: by the way.
David Giard: It's not horrible.
It's very simple.
I love simplicity.
And there's a link here for your
podcast, of course, but there's
also a link for a YouTube channel
and a Discord channel and articles.
Uh, what is this?
Is this the same content,
uh, that you're just
Kevin Griffin: YouTube?
Yeah.
YouTube is the same
content as on the podcast.
We just cross posts to different places.
Everyone consumes content differently.
Uh, some like to listen to it.
Some like to watch it.
So we try to make sure we, we
cover all those different bases.
Um, the discord is where
the community is at.
Anyone's welcome to come
hang out in our discord.
Asked your questions
about starting anything.
Actually some good podcast episodes
have come from the discord.
So I, I would love it if people
would jumped in and talked about,
um, what they're running into.
And we can have a discussion there.
The there's a section for articles.
Like I had this ambition that I
was going to write articles after
all the different, um, episodes
just to keep the SEO juice going.
But you know, SEO is dead, right?
Cause AI.
And.
I didn't really start doing that and
I should have taken the link off the
website, but I, I haven't done that yet.
David Giard: Okay.
Um, the, uh, and then I clicked
on the podcast and I see
there's a list of episodes.
Um, you've got 40 of them out so far.
Congratulations on that.
And, uh, and then also there's
a link for people, which I
think is really interesting.
I thought, I think I might
steal this idea as well, where
you have a list of every guest.
That you've ever had on the show and,
um, a little blurb about who they
are, some links to their social media
accounts and websites and everybody
so far, because you're, you're, you're
only, you're less than a year into this.
Everybody has appeared in one
episode, except for Chad Carter,
who's appeared in eight episodes.
Who is Chad?
Kevin Griffin: So Chad, uh, a good
friend of mine, he was there at the very
beginning and we S uh, we started having
an, an interview episode, and then we
would have like a commentary episode Okay.
Where we would talk a little
bit deeper about whatever
the guest kind of touched on.
And Chad was there for some of those
initial conversations, as was Sean Marin.
He, he was there at the
beginning of the journey as well.
Um, but you know, like.
We learned kind of early on the
commentary episodes were taking
away a lot from the, the content.
And so we did away with the commentary and
it just ended up being me moving forward.
David Giard: Oh, okay.
Um, now, uh, I've mentioned this
earlier, but multithreaded income.
com is the main website, podcasts.
multithreadedincome.
com is the way to get
directly with a podcast.
And I see you have a subscribe
button right at the top here.
Kevin Griffin: Yes, we do.
Uh, anywhere you get your podcast from
David Giard: Apple podcast,
Spotify, Overcast, Amazon, um,
or you can just listen to it
right here in the web browser.
I think,
Kevin Griffin: yep, that works as well.
I would love for everyone to subscribe.
Like that just helps everything.
Um, I will.
David Giard: And so will
all of my tens of viewers.
Kevin Griffin: I appreciate
each and every one of you.
David Giard: Very cool.
Is there anything we haven't
talked about that you really
want to tell people about this?
Kevin Griffin: Uh, probably not.
It's a.
It's a labor of love for me.
I love talking about the business of
software and putting it into terms that,
um, normal people can, can talk about.
Um, I did a conversation at Codemash
this past year, specifically
on multithreaded income.
And we talked about the various ways
you can make income and, uh, I got a,
an amazing reception to, to that talk.
Um, I wish more conferences would
pick it up because I think it's
a very beneficial set of skills
that people can develop over time.
Um, but yeah, it's really led the way to
doing more and more of these episodes.
Every time I push an episode out.
If I hear something good about the
episode, I know I'm doing something right.
And it's just a great way for me
to give back to the community.
That's helped me so much over the past.
15 plus years.
David Giard: Kevin, thank you so much.
It's always good to talk to you.
Kevin Griffin: You too, David.
Thank you.
You've been listening to the
multi threaded income podcast.
I really hope that this podcast
has been useful for you.
If it has, please take a moment to leave a
review wherever you get your podcast from.
And don't forget the
conversation doesn't stop here.
Join us on our discord at mti.
to slash discord.
I've been your host Kevin Griffin
and we'll see you next week.
Cha ching!