Forum Moderators: skibum
To start off with my goal is clear and attainable. My current situation is this; I run a few small niche sites and average around $120 a day profit, so I am looking for over 2000% growth.
Here are the rules:
1) Within one year of the site going live (< 2.5 months) I want to hit this
2) I will not give up
3) It will be with a brand new domain and site
4) I am starting with just over $5,000 (however, more may be added if the checks lag behind too much, but that will be accounted for).
5) It will use affiliate programs as well as AdSense
Here is what has already been done:
1) 1 link from a previous site has been pointed to some placeholder content, google has indexed the site with no title, I may add some more links soon
2) Site design has been outsourced, almost complete
3) An outsourced programmer has been confirmed for the CMS
4) An LLC has been formed for the company
5) 10 contractors have been hired to write continuous content
Here is the timeline:
1) Design done within another week
2) Programmed and ready to go live within 2.5 months from now
Expectations:
1) I imagine I will need a few million impressions per month to obtain this, but I want to be at this level within 1 year
2) I might have to hire a full time programmer and a few content writers along the way
I am sure a lot of other unexpected things will happen along the way, but just wanted to make an initial post much like rfungs, I will next update when the site is completed.
Wish me luck.
P.S. Multiply my daily goal by 365 ;-). I may not respond to PMs, don’t be offended, I’m just busy.
might want to check that out.
personally, I try to avoid sites that're newer than roughly a year. that's by no means exact- but older sites that existed before the sandbox implimention sure do a hell of a lot better for me.
for most sites that will be heavily relying on google's traffic, I tend to look into buying an existing site from someone or sticking it in an existing domain/subdomain on one of my older sites.
I've never had a site "get out" and attain the same ranking power older sites seem to have with google. plenty of these I've had for 6+ months..
What niche are you targeting?
EDIT: oops somebody already said that!
Free traffic is not a part of my business plan, it's a bonus.
mind sharing how you plan on generating traffic that'll result in you earning money via adsense and AM, then? (since it seemed that was primarily how you seemed to plan on creating revenue)
By the way good luck with your site that sounds awesome I will definitely be following along to see what happens I am interested in the process. We are all rooting for you(or at least I am).
Thanx,
Gil Cole
[edited by: jcoronella at 10:27 pm (utc) on Feb. 28, 2005]
[edit reason] No self promotion / personal url drops please. [/edit]
Are you just shooting for the moon, or have you actually heard of sites that make a million bucks without selling anything?
I know of a couple.. Isn't about.com earning over a million a month from google?
It'll be hard, but it will be done.
I don't plan to put much money in, hire programmers, or make a million, but you've inspired me. I just bought a domain name a few minutes ago, and I'm picking up the gauntlet. I'd challenge you to a competition, but I'd get hosed, since I'm very new at this stuff.
I mulled over several niche options that I could pursue with some degree of competence, and I decided to start a site that's related to what I do every day, and which people desperately need information.
Now, that's this "html" stuff I keep hearing about?
To make that kind of money you'll have to target niches that have big payouts. Finance comes to mind. Clutter your pages with Adsense above the fold and right in the middle. Use an inline rectangle and forget trying to match the adsense block color with the color of your site design. The more it sticks out the better. Try and hit a 25% CTR (very doable). Let's say on average you get paid 40 cents per click and your CTR is 25%. If you get 60,000 page views per day from contextual advertising and Adwords you'll make $6000 per day gross. Let's say half of that covers advertising..$3000. According to my calculations you'll make $3000/day, or nearly 1.1M/year.
Cheers.
p.s. You try this first, then I'll try it ;)
Thanks for the support.
Maybe seek out venture capitalists!
I don't think your project is impossible, and to the contrary an awesome type of thing to take on.
All the Best,
C.K.
No, no, no - dont even think about the above
Build traffic and cash flow, sock away the money - retire young.
Let's say you go public and retain 30% of the company. You currently have revenues of 40 million, 20 million profit.
P/E of 40 would mean the company is worth 400 million (market cap). If you own 30% of that it is 120 million in one shot.
If you don't go public let's say you own 60% of the company so then you make 12 million a year, it would take 10 years to make 120 assuming everything stays the same.
With the volatility of the internet, I would say if you think you may be at the top of your profit potential for only 1-2 more years and then it may level out, why not go public? I'm not saying I would cash out and be done with the company or give up, but it would be a nice payday for the hard work. I would never give up on the idea though, and it would be my biggest obligation to the shareholders to make sure we continue to grow.
But with the huge P/E ratios of internet companies, it's something I can't get out of my head. Everyone says it's the biggest pain in the world, but I've read about what you do, first hand accounts as well as accounts from some underwriters I've met with.
I know it's a long journey, but it's the sort of thing I really enjoy and been a goal of mine for a while. If my company was in the stage where going pubic is an option I would snatch it up in a second and not look back. I know about Sarbanes-Oxley and other operating expenses with going public. Taking a company public has been a goal of mine for a while, whether this is the idea that takes me there or not I am not sure.
Ok let me get this straight. For $5K starting capital, your going to get over 100k daily impressions withouth relying on search engine traffic? And your paying for 10 writers at the same time, and getting the site design/graphics + site programmed.
Can someone help me understand how the numbers work here? I can't imagine content being that cheap? (although I am completely ignorant when it comes to paid content writers....)
