Post: #26

I get queasy whenever someone either brings up "passive income" or anything that smells of Rich Dad nonsense. Most of that talk is just a preamble to sell you some program. Real businesses take real work, whether they're online or offline.

Post: #27

Anyone have a handle on what a searchable database would cost to build? I have spent a few minutes searching but not getting a clear idea on cost. Or is there a DIY option out there, some of the shelf package? Not sure if that is a good idea though, I am not very technical.

Thanks.

Post: #28

(12-13-2014 12:06 PM)TravellingSoldier Wrote:  And that's the reason most people won't be successful online, or not online for that matter. There's a lot of cheerleaders on the forum that say "go online and collect monthly cheques it's easy" but unless you create a SaaS website or create a large blog where you pay for content to be created, you're going to be invested into the business at least part time.

I've had the privilege to have lived with a couple entrepreneurs that were making 5 figures monthly, and it changed the way I see things. Again, maybe we have different dreams, but if you're an entrepreneur "not comfortable" is a mindset you need to shed. Elon Musk said that starting a company is like "Staring into the abyss and chewing glass." With that said, you can still start companies like me... bootstrap.

It's cheaper than ever to start a business, unless you're going into something like a product. As for finding your target market, just think to yourself "when have I wasted my time or been frustrated with inefficient business practices?" You don't have to reinvent the wheel, sometimes you can make a lot of money just by changing the tire.

Remember "It's not about who did it first it's about who did it right." Just take an idea, improve upon it and sell. Or combine two ideas like I did - an example is Keurig, or peanut butter and chocolate spread in one... lol there's lot's of examples but I'm drawing a blank. The good businesses can be the brick and mortar ones. If you were to start an online business as the sole distributor of wholesale X item in a niche space, you'd kill it if you cornered the market. My friend that's making 5 figures is in a very niche market, but there's still tons of potential.

The best businesses are the ones with recurring monthly income (in a niche service).. subscription. He has approx. 150 users that pay a monthly fee of 60 or 100 dollars, and this accounts for about 11-15k residual. Lots to think about. He runs a niche website builder if you're curious. He made one framework for professionals that need to have an online presence, has customized it for easy building, charges less than competitors for a superior product, outsources the website development and has 2 or 3 employees. He's on track to make 350k this year.

Sometimes you just have to think inside the box.

With all due respect. You sound smart and driven, but go make something happen first then lecture.

The failure rate for a SaaS or brick and mortar is very, very high. It's not a safer choice to go that route. You can be a millionaire from anything, depends on how you run it. Now that we're namedropping I also know affiliate marketer millionaires from running shitty Facebook ads to dating offers. Or guys who just make simple sites and rank them in Google. All depends on how good you are.

That being said, this is also where I see myself in 10 years, selling a SaaS or digital product.

Again, I think you severely underestimate what actually running a business is like.

Post: #29

(12-13-2014 09:15 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Anyone have a handle on what a searchable database would cost to build? I have spent a few minutes searching but not getting a clear idea on cost. Or is there a DIY option out there, some of the shelf package? Not sure if that is a good idea though, I am not very technical.

Thanks.

What kind of database? That is like asking how much a house cost, could be a bird house or a mega mansion.

If you need a simple database that works great and is free I always use MySQL.

Post: #30

delete

Post: #31

I run a few eCommerce stores and do seo for clients. One thing ive found thats more on the easy side and residual is kindle books. you can write books as small as 30 pages of good content, like some how to manuals. Ive found it to be one of my best autopilot streams, I plan to crunch down on it more next year. As once I pop the book up on kindle I seldom even have to touch it again. Promotion on top of that just increases sales even more. and you can write on literally anything. Ill discuss more if anyone is interested.

Post: #32

(12-13-2014 09:15 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Anyone have a handle on what a searchable database would cost to build? I have spent a few minutes searching but not getting a clear idea on cost. Or is there a DIY option out there, some of the shelf package? Not sure if that is a good idea though, I am not very technical.

Thanks.

The question is the amount of records, the number of attributes tracked, the speed you need it, and how the data is used. You need to be a bit more specific on your data and business objectives.

There are a lot of good free options out there but you are usually going to be paying in time, yours or others. Most cases since you think you need a database, it's probably going to be a choice between ms access or mysql.

Again the issue is your business needs since a basic database can be set up with a few tables pretty easy and can be done within a day or so. But when you start adding connectivity with a website, inventory system it can get a bit tougher.

Post: #33

(12-13-2014 09:49 PM)berserk Wrote:  With all due respect. You sound smart and driven, but go make something happen first then lecture.

Yeah I forgot how touchy some here are about online biz topics. Some subjects are better left to PM's.

Post: #34

(12-13-2014 05:23 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  I get queasy whenever someone either brings up "passive income" or anything that smells of Rich Dad nonsense. Most of that talk is just a preamble to sell you some program. Real businesses take real work, whether they're online or offline.

Yes 'passive income' is an obtuse way of referring to 'an income producing asset', i.e. 'a business'.

It is a thing though. Many successful founders of businesses get themselves into a position where the business is self-sustaining, and they can live off the profits whilst doing little work (although they do work hard to get there). I was talking to guy a while back who worked in the HR department of a company, and I asked him 'who runs the company'?

"Oh our CEO is such and such, but she's not the owner. The owner doesn't play any active role in the company anymore. We haven't seen the owner in a while, last I heard he was in Thailand somewhere."

That's the guy I want to be.

Post: #35

(12-14-2014 06:30 AM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 09:49 PM)berserk Wrote:  With all due respect. You sound smart and driven, but go make something happen first then lecture.

Yeah I forgot how touchy some here are about online biz topics. Some subjects are better left to PM's.

This online stuff is cut throat man. You got it easy working in the oil patch. Glad to see you're back on your feet and doing well, Ali.

Post: #36

(12-13-2014 09:49 PM)berserk Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 12:06 PM)TravellingSoldier Wrote:  And that's the reason most people won't be successful online, or not online for that matter. There's a lot of cheerleaders on the forum that say "go online and collect monthly cheques it's easy" but unless you create a SaaS website or create a large blog where you pay for content to be created, you're going to be invested into the business at least part time.

I've had the privilege to have lived with a couple entrepreneurs that were making 5 figures monthly, and it changed the way I see things. Again, maybe we have different dreams, but if you're an entrepreneur "not comfortable" is a mindset you need to shed. Elon Musk said that starting a company is like "Staring into the abyss and chewing glass." With that said, you can still start companies like me... bootstrap.

It's cheaper than ever to start a business, unless you're going into something like a product. As for finding your target market, just think to yourself "when have I wasted my time or been frustrated with inefficient business practices?" You don't have to reinvent the wheel, sometimes you can make a lot of money just by changing the tire.

Remember "It's not about who did it first it's about who did it right." Just take an idea, improve upon it and sell. Or combine two ideas like I did - an example is Keurig, or peanut butter and chocolate spread in one... lol there's lot's of examples but I'm drawing a blank. The good businesses can be the brick and mortar ones. If you were to start an online business as the sole distributor of wholesale X item in a niche space, you'd kill it if you cornered the market. My friend that's making 5 figures is in a very niche market, but there's still tons of potential.

The best businesses are the ones with recurring monthly income (in a niche service).. subscription. He has approx. 150 users that pay a monthly fee of 60 or 100 dollars, and this accounts for about 11-15k residual. Lots to think about. He runs a niche website builder if you're curious. He made one framework for professionals that need to have an online presence, has customized it for easy building, charges less than competitors for a superior product, outsources the website development and has 2 or 3 employees. He's on track to make 350k this year.

Sometimes you just have to think inside the box.

With all due respect. You sound smart and driven, but go make something happen first then lecture.

The failure rate for a SaaS or brick and mortar is very, very high. It's not a safer choice to go that route. You can be a millionaire from anything, depends on how you run it. Now that we're namedropping I also know affiliate marketer millionaires from running shitty Facebook ads to dating offers. Or guys who just make simple sites and rank them in Google. All depends on how good you are.

That being said, this is also where I see myself in 10 years, selling a SaaS or digital product.

Again, I think you severely underestimate what actually running a business is like.

With all due respect, you don't know me or what I've done. I do understand what it takes to run a business and I've been working 90+ hours a week every week for the last 2 months since the ideas conception. I designed the website, wrote all of the written content on the site, am writing all the content for the sites blog, already have several people in my candidate pool to hire sales reps, I have a sales team manager that is already working with me and getting ready to start the campaign... In other words I'm making something happen right now.

I understand the concept of show and prove, but is me giving advice to people to reach higher any worse than someone bullshitting and telling you you're going to earn 2k a month in your sleep by doing X thing?

At the end of the day, you can still make good money off a shitty business if it's run the right way or by the right person. My original point was that you can't expect to get anything for a half assed effort. Sure you may get lucky and get in the market at the right time and score big, but that's not the norm.

As for making money on crappy facebook stuff... I wouldn't know about that area because I focus on and enjoy businesses that offer value to the world, not just make money.

That's cool that you're interested in making a product, that's a great idea. Make it once, improve over time and sell forever. Optionally start a brand and create correlated products (like the bang series.) I'd say having a product, especially digital, is a really cool idea if you have something of value to offer. What kind of product would you make, content wise?

Anyway don't take the start of the reply as me being overly defensive or striking back at you, I obviously have to be successful before I tell someone else how to be. The biggest things though are: Vision, drive, ambition and belief. By belief I mean believing in your idea 100% and going through with it. That's the most important thing I'm trying to get across.

Don't focus on the failure rate, just focus on creating something valuable. Just like how everyone says 90% of businesses fail in the first year, who cares? The statistics are skewed and those 90% businesses were probably just shitty ideas or not very valuable.

Post: #37

I have a niche site that I got started by a team about 8 months ago. 50 articles 500-700 words each.

It ranks ok on google but now I have a situation where I have no motivation or time to work on SEO, creating more content or creating more affiliate opportunities.

I've tried looking into doing a 50/50 profit share with someone who could take over for optimising and creating more affiliate income but come up with nothing.
If anyone would be interested in this PM me.

Also I have a new ecommerce site that takes up a majority of my time.

(12-14-2014 03:32 AM)JackFrost Wrote:  I run a few eCommerce stores and do seo for clients. One thing ive found thats more on the easy side and residual is kindle books. you can write books as small as 30 pages of good content, like some how to manuals. Ive found it to be one of my best autopilot streams, I plan to crunch down on it more next year. As once I pop the book up on kindle I seldom even have to touch it again. Promotion on top of that just increases sales even more. and you can write on literally anything. Ill discuss more if anyone is interested.

I will send you a PM re eCommerce.

Post: #38

I'm hoping someone will chime in with how to drive traffic to websites. Over the years we've been losing listeners due to the fact that the radio tuners that listeners come from are going away or being hidden. On-air promos remind people of the website address but there's a very low conversion rate there. It amazes me how many people cannot remember the web address to tune in after listening for months or even years.

If we had 20k I'd want to spend it on advertising to get more website listeners. People on iTunes or Winamp or Windows media player don't show the banner ads that make us money.

We don't have 20k though, what are cheap and free ways to advertise that are effective?

Post: #39

Who do you guys like for cheap hosting?

Godaddy is having a $1/month deal which includes hosting, the domain address and one email account.

I figure I can go ahead and try something for so little, unless I am missing something. At the end of 12 months Godaddy will charge $12/month.

On this Top 10 list a lot of the vendors offer a real good price for a month, then it goes back to regular pricing.
http://www.top10bestwebsitehosting.com/C...oCOtrw_wcB

Anyone getting good hosting for less? And are those free advertising credits that some of the companies offer, very useful? I am assuming they are legit, so free advertising dollars is a good thing.

Post: #40

Sam I use host gator: but I'm super new too all of this. first month for .01 and then less then $10 after that. and it looks like I can ran multiple sites for the 1 price. however I'm sure there's better and cheaper out there, I however don't know them

Post: #41

Hostgator
Bluehost
Stablehost
Hawkhost

You can find dirt cheap hosting at Webhostingtalk forums, but I only use it for other purposes, not to host an earning site.

WPEngine or Trafficplanet hosting for money makers.

Post: #42

This is a great beginner's guide to online marketing:
http://www.quicksprout.com/the-beginners...marketing/

He gives a lot of great guides and also has an online school that teaches you a lot about online marketing.

Post: #43

I use 1and1. Hosting is like 2 bucks a month right now and I have 3 different sites running

Post: #44

(12-15-2014 12:31 PM)DJ-Matt Wrote:  I'm hoping someone will chime in with how to drive traffic to websites. Over the years we've been losing listeners due to the fact that the radio tuners that listeners come from are going away or being hidden. On-air promos remind people of the website address but there's a very low conversion rate there. It amazes me how many people cannot remember the web address to tune in after listening for months or even years.

If we had 20k I'd want to spend it on advertising to get more website listeners. People on iTunes or Winamp or Windows media player don't show the banner ads that make us money.

We don't have 20k though, what are cheap and free ways to advertise that are effective?

spend some of that money, litery only a few hundred to 1k and build up a massive social media following, like 100k on fb and 100k on twitter, then when you go live you will have a live feed direct to people. the podcasts i follow do this and it works great, the other thing is the content, if people dont come back and want to hear more, you will know by how many people bookmark it or share. either way it works and its low cost. hush hush, but you can start with some fake to boost up the account,then get some real follower services, that will push the accounts forward with real people and at and around that point you will start getting new real followers each day, I run social media packages for small to large companies, and it works like a charm. GL

Post: #45

In on thread to learn and contribute. Working on a few projects right now that I will share in the future.

Post: #46

(01-05-2015 09:04 PM)JackFrost Wrote:  

(12-15-2014 12:31 PM)DJ-Matt Wrote:  I'm hoping someone will chime in with how to drive traffic to websites. Over the years we've been losing listeners due to the fact that the radio tuners that listeners come from are going away or being hidden. On-air promos remind people of the website address but there's a very low conversion rate there. It amazes me how many people cannot remember the web address to tune in after listening for months or even years.

If we had 20k I'd want to spend it on advertising to get more website listeners. People on iTunes or Winamp or Windows media player don't show the banner ads that make us money.

We don't have 20k though, what are cheap and free ways to advertise that are effective?

spend some of that money, litery only a few hundred to 1k and build up a massive social media following, like 100k on fb and 100k on twitter, then when you go live you will have a live feed direct to people. the podcasts i follow do this and it works great, the other thing is the content, if people dont come back and want to hear more, you will know by how many people bookmark it or share. either way it works and its low cost. hush hush, but you can start with some fake to boost up the account,then get some real follower services, that will push the accounts forward with real people and at and around that point you will start getting new real followers each day, I run social media packages for small to large companies, and it works like a charm. GL

I heard that fake facebook followers can mess you up though because FB doesn't show your posts to 100% of the audience so hence if most are fake and don't read or like the post no one will ever see it. Twitter on the other hand doesn't work that way so I see no harm in buying followers there. How much does it cost for enough followers to generate attention?

Post: #47

Ive been pursuing this for almost the past two months. The problem with me though is I have too many ideas and cant focus on one and truly believe its going to work because im too focused on the money aspect.
For e.g. Ive almost finished getting my app developed for iOS/android, but im really struggling to get people to download it because its one thing to advertise and get people to like it etc but its another to get them to actually download it.

Now im unsure if what I have created was a good idea or not because its got considerable monthly costs plus there are the advertising costs needed plus an hour or two a day to upload the stuff. Amongst having this app, a blog that needs alot of work, a niche dropshipping idea and creating an ebook idea is really overwhelming what the fuck I should be doing!

My niche dropship idea I think is pretty good but im hesitant to start another thing thats just going to have alot of costs and no income. Guess the next few months will prove if what im doing is good or not..

Post: #48

@JackFrost - how do you build a social media following of 100k for less than a thousand wouldnt this cost more like $5-10k?