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All your eggs in one basket? Lessons learned...

by bfas
24 replies
I've learned - the hard way - the dangers of having "all your eggs in one basket" so-to-speak. Since IM is my full-time occupation, I can be very exposed when it comes to things outside my control.

Among the lessons I've learned:

  • Don't host all your sites on the same hosting account, or for that matter with a single provider
  • Don't rely on a single revenue stream, or even a single model such as Adsense
  • Backup your sites
  • Backup your PC's
  • Backup your lists
  • Keep a 'non-local' backup, off-site or online (fwiw, mozy.com still offers a free, no-credit-card 2Gb online backup)
  • Don't become over-reliant on a single person, such as a writer, VA, etc.

Sure, this all sounds like remedial common sense, but I'm willing to bet most of us fail in one or more of these.

It only takes one incident to wish you had made the minimal effort to protect your business!

bfas
#basket #eggs #learned #lessons
  • Profile picture of the author Aussie_Striker
    Originally Posted by bfas View Post

    • Don't host all your sites on the same hosting account, or for that matter with a single provider
    • Don't rely on a single revenue stream, or even a single model such as Adsense
    • Backup your sites
    • Backup your PC's
    • Backup your lists
    • Keep a 'non-local' backup, off-site or online (fwiw, mozy.com still offers a free, no-credit-card 2mb online backup)
    • Don't become over-reliant on a single person, such as a writer, VA, etc.
    Good advice. I don't think 2mb from mozy is going to help much though. I have excel files that are over 10mb by themselves
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    • Profile picture of the author bfas
      Originally Posted by Aussie_Striker View Post

      [/LIST]Good advice. I don't think 2mb from mozy is going to help much though. I have excel files that are over 10mb by themselves
      Ha! How's that for a typo...? It's 2GB free, not 2MB!

      And with 2GB, it's amazing what critical data you can backup. Put another way, if you lost everything, could you rebuild your crucial stuff if you magically had your choice of any 2GB back?

      It's worth noting that if you sign up for their 'personal' plan, it's only $4.95/month for *unlimited* space.

      bfas
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  • Profile picture of the author Mohammad Afaq
    Good advice,

    Right now I am working on building different income streams.

    Will start working on others when I'm finished
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    • Profile picture of the author Etak
      Don't put your eggs in one basket...absolutely. But then again, why would you want to? That's the beautiful thing about IM all the different possibilities and opportunities to add new things to the business plan.
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      • Profile picture of the author garyv
        Originally Posted by Etak View Post

        Don't put your eggs in one basket...absolutely. But then again, why would you want to? That's the beautiful thing about IM all the different possibilities and opportunities to add new things to the business plan.
        I think what the op is pointing out, is that you can have your stuff spread out, and still risk having it technically in the same basket. You could be hosting all of your sites on different hosting accounts. But if you use aweber on all of them, then you're putting your eggs into one basket. You could be in a hundred different niches, using a hundred different merchant accounts. But if you're hosting them all on the same server, then your eggs are in one basket.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary King
    Sounds like you may have gotten burned a time or two there bfas...

    Good share - also consider:

    Have a second email address you can use for communication if your primary email is down.

    Don't host both DNS servers with your web site. If the web host is down, then your DNS could also easily be down. If possible, split it between two providers. At a minimum, have the registrar and the web host be different so you can update the DNS if the web site is down.
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  • Profile picture of the author good2go4
    I agree with Etak that the internet actually provides us a place where we don't have to focus specifically on one thing, or put all of our eggs in one basket. While I still think it is important to have a system in place, and that backing up your system, files, sites etc is a really good idea as pointed out here, the fact that i can then apply that system to a whole range of different income streams, niches, methods of product delivery and even presenting offers is just great

    Thank you for the timely reminder about back ups though - I haven't done that for a while Bfas I hope your lesson didn't cost you too much
    All the best
    Lisa
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  • Profile picture of the author bfas
    Thanks Gary, great point about having alternate email addresses.

    What else have I missed?

    bfas
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Good advice. I learned the first two items on the list the hard way when I was first starting out.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    If you have a registered business then remember to get it an AdSense account as well as your personal one.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheSalesTechnician
    In this business diversification is probably the most important thing. At any given time I have 10 projects going on at once. There is a reason for this.

    Just a few weeks ago I had some problems with a google slap that brought my income down by 60%.

    If I didnt have other income streams I would be flipping burgers right now dreaming of what it was like when I USED to be an IM.

    But I learned a long time ago the dangers of this. AS they say in downtown LA "dont get caught slipping!"
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  • Profile picture of the author Rukshan
    Best Advice in IM. We must try few methods to make money.
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  • Profile picture of the author ukcarl
    Backup your sites
    This one I know only too well I lost a 30+ page site with an excelent review on it that I was sending PPC too that made about $300-400 a month totally on auto pilot.

    Lost it and didnt save anything. Gutted.
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    • Profile picture of the author tresero
      Originally Posted by ukcarl View Post

      This one I know only too well I lost a 30+ page site with an excelent review on it that I was sending PPC too that made about $300-400 a month totally on auto pilot.

      Lost it and didnt save anything. Gutted.
      I decided to make my backup script available for free after some similar posts on earn 1k Day.

      It will automatically backup all your mysql databases, and web directories to S3.

      If anyone wants to get the script PM me. I do ask for an opt-in but it is free and I do support it.
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  • Profile picture of the author jlucado
    yeah, back up everything and never put all your eggs in one basket.

    However, many who never make any money have too many baskets and not enough eggs.
    FOCUS
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  • Profile picture of the author mogulmedia
    I wouldn't trust any 'cloud' back up service with your important files...
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  • Profile picture of the author petesankey
    Hi, thanks for the tips. Bfas can I clarify when you say
    • Don't host all your sites on the same hosting account, or for that matter with a single provider
    • Don't rely on a single revenue stream, or even a single model such as Adsense
    are you saying this because you worry about the site going down, or are you worried about SEO issues. Do you think you have been penalised by google for having sites on the same ip address? Are your different sites linking to each other?

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author wadboram
    Hi,

    Very helpful advice
    I need more details about why I shouldn't host all the sites on the same hosting account, or for that matter with a single provider ?
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    • Profile picture of the author tresero
      Originally Posted by wadboram View Post

      Hi,

      Very helpful advice
      I need more details about why I shouldn't host all the sites on the same hosting account, or for that matter with a single provider ?
      Because if they close, or have connection issues, all your sites are at risk.
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  • Profile picture of the author tresero
    wow, that could turn into a flame war, but here goes.

    Two that I use when I am not on my own private servers:
    Namecheap (aff)
    Namecheap (non-aff)

    and
    Hostgator (aff)
    Hostgator (non-aff)

    There are many more, but beware that unlimited, doesn't really mean unlimited. They reserve the right to shut you down if you use too much "unlimited" bandwidth or disk.

    That is why I don't use GoDaddy and some of the others.
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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    The odd thing is that after years of not putting my eggs in one basket I am now in the process of streamlining my business online to do exactly that!
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    • Profile picture of the author tresero
      Originally Posted by jazbo View Post

      The odd thing is that after years of not putting my eggs in one basket I am now in the process of streamlining my business online to do exactly that!
      That is funny, I have done that as well, except now I am expanding again. Many people don't realize Google is their org chart
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