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Anyway, this Internet business wasn't thriving at all such that I was told by my family to get a real job. I couldn't find a job at that time because the market was saturated. I was down at that time but this hasn't prevented me to continue with the Internet business thing I was doing. I told myself I will give everything I can to make it succeed. I remember family around me telling me that you're spending way too much time on the pc and there wasn't much in return and that it was a waste of time. I remember something like I was getting "peanuts" money and it didn't justify all the time I was spending in front of my pc.
One year later after I started all this, I went from $6 a month to thousands per month. The leap was huge. I remember when I showed my father a 4 figure cheque and he simply couldn't believe it. He thought he has wrongly seen the amount and perhaps the decimal point was at the wrong place lol. He keeps looking at it and asked me "Where the hell did you get that money?". I told him consultation to how to make money on the Internet is $500 per hour just to tease him. For me it was the happiest day of my life because this was the first time I received such amount of money. It was a kind of dream after going through all these hardships. I finally realised it can be done and now everyone around me look at what I am doing with a "different eye". Some are even interested to do something like this. I would really appreciate if other members at Webmasterworld could share their experience with this. Thanks. It's nice to hear other people's experience because we are all here more or less with the same objective ie to make money from an Internet business.
I told him consultation to how to make money on the Internet is $500 per hour just to tease him.
That's what I tell anyone who finds out what I do, but I'm serious. :-) Really, it's just to price myself out of range. Well, friends can get it for free, but no one has ever seriously taken me up on it that was starting from scratch.
To start with, I always found something that worked, then tried to repeat it. That eventually freed me up to try new things.
I learned to fail a lot. I learned to abandon something when it looks like it isn't going to work like I wanted. I look at it like this... for every time I step to the plate, I expect to strike out 5-6 times, get a few hits, and hopefully one home run. Each "at bat" takes a different amount of time, depending on the depth of what I'm trying to do.
Sometimes, I'll stop with a full count and just let something sit until I can give it the attention it deserves.
Frankly speaking, I prefer to avoid telling people how I do that apart my closest family like my brother for example who is interested to know more. It's sometimes hard when people ask you that question "What do you do for a living?". I usually reply, well I do e-commerce and sell things on the Internet by advertising. Sometimes they don't have any clue what I am talking about. I remember once, another cousin asked me if I can show him exactly what I do and how I do that. He was at my place. Boy, I was a bit shocked he asked me that so directly. I didn't have any answer at that moment and just told him it's personal stuff. The $500 per hour stuff would have fit well here :-) but don't think I will be able to say that. Well with my father it's ok because it was just to kid. With my cousin who is too serious, I don't think I can say that to him. It's good to know there are some people in similar situations like when people ask them how to do this.
You're right when you find something that work, you just need to repeat it. That's what is so motivating. Me too I failed quite a lot and even get discouraged at some point in time but I never really gave up. Think this is what made me stronger. Dedication and perseverance are so crucial in Internet business. While my friends were enjoying themselves at that time, I was working on my Internet business spending hours and hours and barely sleeping even during weekends. I know the fun time can wait. Well it was really worth in the end. When I left high school, I worked immediately in a small company which I've stopped to pursue some studies. It's only after my studies and couldn't find a new job that I started this business. I still remember the 9-5 "rat race" as we call it. I was working hard and getting low pay in that. Since that time, I have always dreamt of being my own boss. This is also what made me start my Internet business and I haven't looked back again.
I remember once, another cousin asked me if I can show him exactly what I do and how I do that. He was at my place.
If he is serious, offer to do a joint venture with him. If you have a closely gaurded niche, pick something else. Show him how to learn (searching sites like this), then tell him which things are important to learn. Most people starting out have problems because they don't know what to learn, or the difference between new information and out of date information.
With much of my ventures, I have 200,000+ competitors anyway. One more won't hurt, and I'd rather they be my friend, or get a cut for myself in the process. I've actually made good friends with many of my best competitors. 20 of us share information and get better, giving 20 of us an edge over the other 199,980.
You're right that it's too complicated and time consuming to actually teach, but you can sure accelerate their learning if they have the drive to make their own way. In that case, they'll eventually start teaching you things too.
When I've tried to teach from scratch, I started people on something like frontpage, then showed them how to see what was happening in the code. 5 minutes of instruction, and 10 hours of learning for them. Later, I have to explain why not to use frontpage, but I've never been to that point while helping someone from scratch. Just showing someone how to register a domain, how to FTP, etc, can save them tons of time figuring it out. Even understanding that a perl script needs to be chmoded and how to do it is 2 minutes of my time, but probably took me 2 hours to learn at one point. That's what I meant by accelerating their learning.
When you're starting, I think it's really about getting over those initial humps. I've had plenty of people give me expert advice in other areas, so I don't mind passing it on with something I understand. And I'm self-taught from the beginning, so I remember all of the little mistakes I made, and wish I had me today to show me a few things back then.
I learned to fail a lot.
One key to success is making the most mistakes -- because it means you're making the most decisions and taking the most actions.
Besides getting sites eternally buried in various search engines, I've also taken on clients I knew I shouldn't have from the very first, and suffered for it. I also have become crazily over-extended with work that has no equivalent payoff (I still tend to do that -- I should follow Google's rule of only 20% experimenting time.)
My first client was a friend who extended a revenue sharing offer since I had no track record. When his revenue went through the roof, he felt the need to renegotiate and our relationship got strained. So, I avoid accepting friends as clients now - from time to time I can still be a sucker -- but at least I can see the clouds gasthering earlier and avoid nastiness. Clients who later become friends is a different stotry, somehow.
So, I avoid accepting friends as clients now - from time to time I can still be a sucker -- but at least I can see the clouds gasthering earlier and avoid nastiness. Clients who later become friends is a different stotry, somehow.
Agreed. With my 3-4th venture, I had to buy my brother out because I was doing all of the work. We've all seen those "partnership gone bad" posts where that becomes an issue. He's still a winner on his own, but we couldn't do what we were doing together.
I've done 6-7 commercial sites for family and friends since then. Those have been for free, without an expectation of anything in return. I hate to say there's a karma thing going on, but they certainly rewarded me by sharing their experience, negotiating skills, business philosophy, and all sorts of things that aren't really web related. They paid my out-of-pocket costs, then gave me invaluable advice when I needed it. We all came out pretty good on those.
So we don't get too OT... initial internet business experience can have big payoffs if you do it for free for the right people. Churches and non-profits are good if you're looking for web-dev or hosting referrals and links. I did my free things for people who were already making bank, but knew nothing about the net. Five minutes on the phone with some of these people paid for the 10 hours I spent on their website.
Clients who later become friends is a different stotry, somehow.
I'm a buyer instead of a client these days. Being on the other side, they've become some of my best friends. I always pay them more than they ask when I can afford it, and send them something at christmas. I'd be noplace without their help. I treat everyone I come into contact with good. Most of the time, I don't get it back. When I do, it pays for the times I didn't... pays for the philosophy as a whole.
