Three days ago I launched my new website. It took about 2.5 months once I started taking it seriously. I knew when I launched it that it would take time for the money to come. It's a review site; an online community that I'm trying to build. Out of all the entrepreneurial ventures I've attempted, this is the realest, most impactful one by far. And I did it. I took an idea, researched it, promoted it, learned on the fly how to build it, got it as far as I could and then passed it off to a developer who I worked very closely with to bring it home. And now we're live. It really is one of the accomplishments I'm most proud of considering all the ideas I never took action on.
Reception has been decent. I even made $800 before we launched - so that hard proof combined with a lot of positive feedback kept me going. The project itself, now sparked, is a small fire. And I have no doubt that as long as I keep tending it, it'll continue to grow.
I'm not complaining, and I'm not a lazy or greedy man, but I need money. I got laid off my job at a clothing store in the mall, learned Google Ads from @Andy Black, joined a business networking group, and started managing Google Ads for people while getting unemployment from my old job. I had this idea for my website back in June 2020 but it wasn't until November that I started planning and researching my current project because I realized that managing Google Ads was not going to be a long-term thing for me.
My digital marketing company (if you can call it that) had a very high turnover rate, so once I stopped looking for new customers and focusing solely on my current project, the income from that business dwindled into nothing and I was left with unemployment - thank God.
I made the mistake of having an unreasonable expectation that as soon as I launch, the reviews will poor in and compel the business owners in this specific niche to pay me - not quite. Even though every prospect is interested in the paid service I offer, it doesn't make sense for them to pay me until my audience grows to a point that makes it more compelling to the business owners. And the audience is pretty dependent on the reviews - which I'm learning are not very easy to come by. I'm sure in time they will come. But I got bills due now, and I'm barely scraping by with unemployment.
Option #1: get a job. I can deliver pizzas for my friend that owns a pizza shop. I can get more customers to let me manage their Google Ads. My brother in law can get me a job selling HVAC or something else. I can hop on indeed and try to get something a sales job or something more aligned with digital marketing. I remember in TMF MJ got little jobs here and there to stay focused on the main goal.
Option #2: find a way to turn this website into money. MJ also said to "dump the damn job." Rightfully so, because I've worked my whole life and when I reflect on that I think about all the time that was wasted. 5 days a week in return for 2 = a -60% return on my time investment. I can't do that again. So now it's like, alright. I can find freelance work. Or, I can figure out a way to turn my website into money. I do have something that works great and provides value. I can focus on begging people to write a review - which takes time but helps them have a voice to help others. I can get more businesses to claim their free listing to provide basic info for my visitors - ultimately making it more helpful to people searching. I can call the businesses that have already claimed their businesses and offer them a discount to upgrade to the paid service - but we've only been live for 3 days so maybe I should at least give it a month so I have analytics to demonstrate value.
Option #3: raise funding. I can spend my time doing this, but just the idea of this hurts my pride. I feel like there's gotta be a better way to make money than ask people for it. I don't know why I'm so against this. I guess I feel like if I have something functional, then getting funding this early on should be unnecessary because I should be able to execute well enough to not need it. I don't even know how I would go about doing this - then again, I don't know how I've gone about this whole process lol. I was thinking about opening a credit card to pay my web developer and work to get it paid off before they charge me interest. I could ask my Godfather or my brother-in-law to make an investment. I could take a bank loan.
Obviously, I like option #2 the most, but I need to make money now. And option #2 is the least certain option to handle that objective.
What do you guys think?
Reception has been decent. I even made $800 before we launched - so that hard proof combined with a lot of positive feedback kept me going. The project itself, now sparked, is a small fire. And I have no doubt that as long as I keep tending it, it'll continue to grow.
I'm not complaining, and I'm not a lazy or greedy man, but I need money. I got laid off my job at a clothing store in the mall, learned Google Ads from @Andy Black, joined a business networking group, and started managing Google Ads for people while getting unemployment from my old job. I had this idea for my website back in June 2020 but it wasn't until November that I started planning and researching my current project because I realized that managing Google Ads was not going to be a long-term thing for me.
My digital marketing company (if you can call it that) had a very high turnover rate, so once I stopped looking for new customers and focusing solely on my current project, the income from that business dwindled into nothing and I was left with unemployment - thank God.
I made the mistake of having an unreasonable expectation that as soon as I launch, the reviews will poor in and compel the business owners in this specific niche to pay me - not quite. Even though every prospect is interested in the paid service I offer, it doesn't make sense for them to pay me until my audience grows to a point that makes it more compelling to the business owners. And the audience is pretty dependent on the reviews - which I'm learning are not very easy to come by. I'm sure in time they will come. But I got bills due now, and I'm barely scraping by with unemployment.
Option #1: get a job. I can deliver pizzas for my friend that owns a pizza shop. I can get more customers to let me manage their Google Ads. My brother in law can get me a job selling HVAC or something else. I can hop on indeed and try to get something a sales job or something more aligned with digital marketing. I remember in TMF MJ got little jobs here and there to stay focused on the main goal.
Option #2: find a way to turn this website into money. MJ also said to "dump the damn job." Rightfully so, because I've worked my whole life and when I reflect on that I think about all the time that was wasted. 5 days a week in return for 2 = a -60% return on my time investment. I can't do that again. So now it's like, alright. I can find freelance work. Or, I can figure out a way to turn my website into money. I do have something that works great and provides value. I can focus on begging people to write a review - which takes time but helps them have a voice to help others. I can get more businesses to claim their free listing to provide basic info for my visitors - ultimately making it more helpful to people searching. I can call the businesses that have already claimed their businesses and offer them a discount to upgrade to the paid service - but we've only been live for 3 days so maybe I should at least give it a month so I have analytics to demonstrate value.
Option #3: raise funding. I can spend my time doing this, but just the idea of this hurts my pride. I feel like there's gotta be a better way to make money than ask people for it. I don't know why I'm so against this. I guess I feel like if I have something functional, then getting funding this early on should be unnecessary because I should be able to execute well enough to not need it. I don't even know how I would go about doing this - then again, I don't know how I've gone about this whole process lol. I was thinking about opening a credit card to pay my web developer and work to get it paid off before they charge me interest. I could ask my Godfather or my brother-in-law to make an investment. I could take a bank loan.
Obviously, I like option #2 the most, but I need to make money now. And option #2 is the least certain option to handle that objective.
What do you guys think?
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