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A Positive Beginning for 2013

by Tinkerbell
6 replies
Thinking about giving up? My advice? Don't. Here's why...

A few years back, I bought a domain name, threw up a few pages of website with Amazon associate links on it, and promptly forgot about it. A year later, I added a couple more pages. A year after that (this year) a few more.

On 31 December, Amazon sent a nice deposit to my bank account - advertising fees from the forgotten website. Cool surprise. :-)

Three months ago, I created a membership website. It gets traffic, but not a lot. I didn't care because I had no plans to drive traffic anyway. People who find it, though, do so because it appeals specifically to a big desire of theirs.

Today, my first member signed up. I now have several weeks of recurring income to look forward to.

Neither of these events are huge, but they don't have to be to be good news. One thing follows another and another and as long as I am providing what these people need, they'll tell someone else who will tell someone else.

Eventually, I'll be making more as an advertiser and my recurring income will no longer resemble chump change.

The takeaway? Don't give up. Be willing to start at a snail's pace and just keep going. You never know when what you're working on will suddenly take off.
#2013 #beginning #positive
  • Profile picture of the author jamesrich1
    Originally Posted by Tinkerbell View Post

    Thinking about giving up? My advice? Don't. Here's why...

    A few years back, I bought a domain name, threw up a few pages of website with Amazon associate links on it, and promptly forgot about it. A year later, I added a couple more pages. A year after that (this year) a few more.

    On 31 December, Amazon sent a nice deposit to my bank account - advertising fees from the forgotten website. Cool surprise. :-)

    Three months ago, I created a membership website. It gets traffic, but not a lot. I didn't care because I had no plans to drive traffic anyway. People who find it, though, do so because it appeals specifically to a big desire of theirs.

    Today, my first member signed up. I now have several weeks of recurring income to look forward to.

    Neither of these events are huge, but they don't have to be to be good news. One thing follows another and another and as long as I am providing what these people need, they'll tell someone else who will tell someone else.

    Eventually, I'll be making more as an advertiser and my recurring income will no longer resemble chump change.

    The takeaway? Don't give up. Be willing to start at a snail's pace and just keep going. You never know when what you're working on will suddenly take off.
    I am going to try my best not to sound authoritativeness or disrespectful. I see the deeper lesson that people should not travel at snails pace but at light speed. Remember the tortuous and the hare story? What I got out of it was that its not better to go slow and steady but to go at fast max pace but never stop for a break and fall asleep. Then the hares smokes the tortuous everytime.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Hey Tina,

    I totally get where you're coming from with this and it's great that you want to inspire others, but I'm struggling with the concept that spending a bunch of time making things that at best trickle in a little something, especially if you have to maintain them.

    Making money online is not hard but when it takes you 10 hours to make $50 and the justification is that while you continue to put time into it you may make more - I think there's a problem with that model.

    I know there are a lot of people just starting out an wanting to make "anything", but I'm not convinced that encouraging people to shoot at the bottom of the barrel is the right way to help them.

    For example - if you came to me and said you had those results I would think there was something wrong with your process/model and be looking to improve it - not recommend it to others.

    I don't mean to criticise your post and I definitely am saying this from a positive place.

    Andy
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author Tinkerbell
    I get where you guys are coming from and you're right in most ways. But I mostly look at things like I mentioned in this post as a hobby, so do not need to see immediate results. Immediate results is what my writing business is for.

    So, true. Don't do things at a snail's pace if you NEED to see something now. But don't be scared to throw something up and let it sit for a while between updates as long as it's good stuff, either. Good things can happen.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sushiman1111
    I see where you're coming from, and my experience has been the same, at least partially. I make a pretty good income (four figures a month) from a couple of sites where I sell my own products, but I'm looking to branch out so I'm trying other stuff as well. (Keep in mind that IM for me is in its entirety a side business - I have a "real" business offline that pays the bills and so on.)

    So I threw up an adsense site and it makes 20-30 bucks a month, more than enough to pay for itself so that's cash positive. And I threw up an affiliate site or two, just trying Clickbank out, and my income for 2012 was over a $1200 for those. And as you say, I haven't done anything with those sites since I first made them.

    So I'd say it's a good return on an admittedly small investment. Nothing big, but it's good experience and if it makes some extra money, great.
    Signature
    If you've made your first dollar online and want to take things to the next level - ie, $1000/month - sign up here to get on the WSO prelaunch list.

    Got a health/fitness niche list? Become an affiliate for something new and different here.
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    • Profile picture of the author LaineM
      In the past 5-6 years I developed an opinion that if you want to be successful on whatever you do on the Web, you must ignore the time factor. Go slow, leave it for a while, come back again later. If it is your Business you can manage time in anyway you like; from what I see, better go slow than fast.
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  • Profile picture of the author GoodFE
    Well if it's a hobby or something you do part-time (as is Tinkerbell's case) then this is fantastic for those people struggling to get started. And especially for people that work a full time job and therefor need to start of slowly due to time constraints.

    But you also mentioned that writing is your main focus. I think it would be safe to assume that you take that much more seriously and wouldn't advocate this approach to someone looking to make it into a viable business.

    On a side note, you seem to be finding some success with this despite not putting 100% into it. Many people give their all and can't even make a dollar, have you considered upgrading this from a hobby to a profession?
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