I was unable to post this past weekend, but fear not, the update is here. This past week was spent doing very little to our experimental muses and allowing contractors to finish working on Liz's muse (Mister Vector). Huge progress has been made on her muse and I think that it may be ready for prime-time by the end of this next week. I really think that her muse will do great. I will be finishing up the technical requirements document for my muse (Feeba) this week so I can start receiving bids to have the work done. If we get Liz's site up and running before weeks end, I may do a mid-week post to do a lessons learned on working with foreign developers post. Until then or the end of the week, have fun.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 1 Businesses: 4 Sales: $21 Profit: ($27)
Monday, August 27, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Week 3 Close
This week brought our first profit from our first three businesses (the 4th one is still in a holding pattern) as you can see below. If you look at the Friday numbers you might get the feeling that the numbers are askew, but that is due to the weird way our different ad companies report our earnings. They report as the last 7 days and not a profit for the week. With that in mind we have only slightly moved into the black this week. Lots learned and we are almost ready to unleash our new iPhone site. We have a few rendering bugs to fix in IE and then it will be ready.
I have been following the advice Tim Ferriss gives by indulging in the low information diet. I have not watched any news programs, read any newspapers, or visited any news websites for the past 3 weeks and I have to say that I feel less stressed and much more focused. It may sound weird at first, but what good does it do you to watch the news when all that happens is bad news that you can do nothing about and that doesn't usually have a direct effect on you anyway? Well, I just wanted to say that it definitely makes lunchtime talk much more interesting when you don't indulge in the news. It wasn't as tough as I thought it would be. This will likely be my new default mode. See you next week.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 4 Sales: $98 Profit: $11
I have been following the advice Tim Ferriss gives by indulging in the low information diet. I have not watched any news programs, read any newspapers, or visited any news websites for the past 3 weeks and I have to say that I feel less stressed and much more focused. It may sound weird at first, but what good does it do you to watch the news when all that happens is bad news that you can do nothing about and that doesn't usually have a direct effect on you anyway? Well, I just wanted to say that it definitely makes lunchtime talk much more interesting when you don't indulge in the news. It wasn't as tough as I thought it would be. This will likely be my new default mode. See you next week.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 4 Sales: $98 Profit: $11
Friday, August 17, 2007
Week 3 Review
The learning continued this week. I discovered that many of the clicks we have been paying for to one of our sites have had two problems: 1. They were from the United Kingdom (not a problem if your product is easily shipped there) and 2. The Brits seem to be cheap buggers. Only two sales have come from the UK despite the fact that 80% of our site visits for the site in question were from the UK. Following the 80/20 principle (Pareto's Law) I cut off the 80% of our visitors that were costing us the most in advertising (the Brits) and at the same time reduced our visitors to the 20% that were actually buying something.
This week has brought change for Liz and I in the form of progress towards our primary muse projects. Liz's muse project should be mostly finished by next week (Mister Vector). I put together a rough draft of the requirements for my main muse (Feeba) and I hope to have the requirements finalized by the middle of next week so development can begin in earnest. We also stood up iPhonedThis and Liz reworked the template to make it unique and better than our other commission sites.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 4 Sales: $95 Profit: ($12)
This week has brought change for Liz and I in the form of progress towards our primary muse projects. Liz's muse project should be mostly finished by next week (Mister Vector). I put together a rough draft of the requirements for my main muse (Feeba) and I hope to have the requirements finalized by the middle of next week so development can begin in earnest. We also stood up iPhonedThis and Liz reworked the template to make it unique and better than our other commission sites.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 4 Sales: $95 Profit: ($12)
Friday, August 10, 2007
Week 2: The Week In Review
Well, the week was filled with learning. Liz and I learned quite a bit about ad click revenue and how Google deals with ads. Our sites are getting 50+ visitors a day now and are making decent click revenue from adsense. Commissions were pretty low this week, but I get the feeling that commission sales ebb and flow based on what exists out there on ebay for everyone. That is one of the things I don't care much for is the lack of consistency with commission sales. It is to be expected though. Liz and I are exploring a few more muses (aka businesses) and should know more by this time next week as to whether we can make them work or not. Here are the stats thus far for the week:
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 1 Businesses: 3 Sales: $70 Profit: ($38)
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 1 Businesses: 3 Sales: $70 Profit: ($38)
Monday, August 6, 2007
Week 1 Update!
On Saturday, our commission source posted results from Friday. The end result was $94 in commissions from our first site. I have decided to post my lessons learned for the week on Fridays with current sales figures and then post a week closing on Sundays. I am pretty happy with how our first website has done in its first week. I look forward to seeing how it fares this week.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 1 Sales: $97 Profit: ($16)
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 1 Sales: $97 Profit: ($16)
Friday, August 3, 2007
Week 1
I'll tell you one thing for sure, you learn a lot about running an online business when you jump right in. My girlfriend (Liz herein) and I setup our first online business this week. Our first business is automotive related and earns money based on both advertising (Google Adwords) and commissions for redirecting the winning bidders to auctions for things automotive related (ebay affiliate program).
As is true with all startups, there were initial setup costs incurred. This week's startup costs were in buying domains ($8.95) and software to get our site up and running ($94). That brings our first weeks one-time charges to $102.95. Our weekly expenses were entirely due to advertising (gotta make those winning bidders know where we are. How else will they win that auction?). Total amount spent on advertising equals $10.32. Not too bad really. Our total income from hosting our own advertising equals $3.37. Our total income from commissions was $0. Yep you read that right. We made nothing from commissions as of yet. I really didn't expect anything different as we have only had the site live for 4 days.
Looking ahead, Liz and I plan to stand up another business this weekend and are working on two information driven businesses that we hope to debut in the next week or so. Stay tuned for updates.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 1 Sales: $3 Profit: ($110)
As is true with all startups, there were initial setup costs incurred. This week's startup costs were in buying domains ($8.95) and software to get our site up and running ($94). That brings our first weeks one-time charges to $102.95. Our weekly expenses were entirely due to advertising (gotta make those winning bidders know where we are. How else will they win that auction?). Total amount spent on advertising equals $10.32. Not too bad really. Our total income from hosting our own advertising equals $3.37. Our total income from commissions was $0. Yep you read that right. We made nothing from commissions as of yet. I really didn't expect anything different as we have only had the site live for 4 days.
Looking ahead, Liz and I plan to stand up another business this weekend and are working on two information driven businesses that we hope to debut in the next week or so. Stay tuned for updates.
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 1 Sales: $3 Profit: ($110)
Thursday, August 2, 2007
The Beginning
If you are reading this, you have found my website. My blog will serve to chronicle my efforts to join the "New Rich" a term coined by Tim Ferriss, author of the self-help book entitled: The Four Hour Workweek. At the end of each post I will list important information in my pursuit of the Four Hour Workweek. This information will be presented in the following format:
Normal Work Hours (My Regular Job)
Hours Worked for my New Rich (NR) Life
Businesses Started Since July 2007
Total Sales for my businesses (Before Expenses)
Profit (Post Expenses) Negative numbers will be parenthesized
Example:
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 1 Sales: $20 Profit: ($100)
Tomorrow I will introduce my first business and how much I hope to make from it. I will update my blog every Friday evening if possible. If something keeps me from posting, I will post on Saturday morning for sure. Keep checking back to see how it is going.
Normal Work Hours (My Regular Job)
Hours Worked for my New Rich (NR) Life
Businesses Started Since July 2007
Total Sales for my businesses (Before Expenses)
Profit (Post Expenses) Negative numbers will be parenthesized
Example:
NW Hours: 40 NR Hours: 2 Businesses: 1 Sales: $20 Profit: ($100)
Tomorrow I will introduce my first business and how much I hope to make from it. I will update my blog every Friday evening if possible. If something keeps me from posting, I will post on Saturday morning for sure. Keep checking back to see how it is going.
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