What do you Mean, "There Ain't No Signs?"

Short backstory. I became a freelance computer engineer ten years ago. 95% of my leads came from the Internet. I made roughly 500K during this period. At first, I could only take apart a computer, after a year I was fluent in cabling, telco, television repair, servers, and Cisco. Eventually, a flood of people entered the market, and rates dropped, dramatically. From $150/hr to like $17.50/hr. It was pretty automated, you made yourself available when needed, and focused on doing a great job.

This dried up and I started e-commerce. The first thing I noticed is that there is no predictability. There are no signs telling you, "you did the right thing." No immediate feedback. I opened an Adwords account and made two sells the same day. "This could be big!" I thought. Then it took two weeks to get another sell. Then I was having to take main income and pay Google.

The income the site made went right back into advertising, equipment, etc. I was reading, watching, and listening to advice non-stop. Reading a book a day. Unable to sleep because I could get the site off my mind. The great ideas want to come at 3am and 5am.

Eventually, things started to trickle. My wife was looking at me crossed eyed because the site was absorbing more than it produced.

Finally, I am driving in my car talking to myself wondering if I am doing the right thing. Whether I should give up. I decided to get on the light rail and ride through the city to clear my head. I finally convinced myself that my cause is really worthy and that customers appreciate what I do.

I come to the forum and learn about linear expectations vs exponential growth. Now I am in it for the long haul. Made the ambitious decision to publicly state that I am going to help 1,000,000 people this year, asked my customers to help me. Finally reach helping 10 in a day. And so the journey continues...

Don't expect to see many signs on this road. Have to have that gut feeling that your cause is worthy, that it is game-changing, and that one day it will take off and help a bunch of people.