Collecting royalties on accident

Notes from a cold-caller by day, royalty-stream builder by night.

I’ve been making royalties since 2019.

I just didn’t realize it was something you could do on purpose until I met Travis.

The story is short. I released a song that year.

I was smart enough to click a few buttons on a sync licensing platform.

And a month or so later, “You’ve just been paid” notifications started landing in my Gmail.

It was my first taste of creating something once and getting paid for it forever.

Now... my first royalty income was lucky.

I made the song. I clicked some buttons. Money showed up.

Six years later it’s still showing up.

But Travis has challenged me to ask:

What if I set the next one up... on purpose?

Me banging out cold calls. And daydreaming about setting up royalty income.

Evan DeVries here.

I work 9-5 as an SDR. 100s of dials a day. Headset on. Dialer running.

The kind of work where I stop dialing and the income stops too.

Travis talks about designing his days to be full of 8s, 9s, and 10s on a “this lights me up” scale.

For him that’s teaching people, making breakthroughs, writing, reading. And of course a good BBQ meal with his wife Jeannie.

My dialer days... aren’t 8s, 9s, and 10s.

They’re 3s and 4s with the occasional “meeting set” dopamine spike.

So I’m on a quest to make a change.

I’m hoping you won’t mind hearing more about it?

Brick by brick. I’m building a life filled with the things I WANT to be doing.

And it starts with getting ONE hands-free royalty stream set up. On purpose.

Then another. Then another. Until my monthly bills are handled and I’m free to spend my hours on work that lights me up.

That’s what I’m building right now. And it’s part of why Travis introduced me here a week back as a “tech god.”

I’m guessing he meant it kindly. I’m sure taking it that way :)

The bigger thing he did, though, was name something about me I hadn’t quite named for myself.

I’ve been called a tech guy my whole life and always just brushed it off.

Somehow I’d never noticed I have a persistence to bang through the tech snafus.

And a deep satisfaction when the tech finally starts to work.

Those two things together make it something I’m better at than most.

That’s what Travis calls your 10 of Hearts.

The weirdly-specific knack you’re using anyway... that someone else would pay you royalties for.

You become the missing card in their “royal flush.”

For me it turns out that’s the nerdy, technical side.

Cold email setup. Claude Code automations. Enriching prospects with the right data for cold outreach campaigns until positive replies and deals are pouring in.

Nerding out and building the boring thing that runs in the background so sales happen easier.

Like my pal Sunny shared yesterday, I’m still building my tenure on Planet Mojo.

But so far it’s been a comfortable and rewarding stay.

My first paid 10-of-Hearts moment? AI-powered cold outreach landed me a partner in the music niche.

My tech was the missing card in their royal flush. I’m still collecting royalty checks from what we built together.

And I’ve even helped Ronin with their cold email set-up in a mini-course I made too.

So my 10 of Hearts, as far as I can tell, comes down to:

Making the tough tech stuff useful... for myself and others.

So we can all land deals and collect royalty income easier.

Your 10 of Hearts might be way different!

But I’m wondering…

Where are my techy, behind-the-scenes folks who love to make it rain at??

If that’s you... hit the little heart at the bottom so I know where my peeps are!

If you’ll have me, I’ll keep writing for you.

Appreciate you all,

Evan

PS - Next time I’ll go deeper on the 10 of Hearts idea. It’s something we all figure out together inside Ronin. And I’m wondering what yours is.