What do you think of my 30-day trial idea?

[icesar]

Hi friends! I am going to do a 30 day trial where I launch a new online business idea every day for 30 days. I am going to do it, (1) because it scares me, (2) because I have ideas for businesses all the time but rarely follow through on them, and (3) because one of my strengths is starting new projects, and I don't give myself enough opportunities to use that strength.

I'm also a pretty good web designer and online marketer, having worked in the space for the last four years. C'est moi --> Flee the Cube

I realize that this is not an effective way to build any business, but I believe it is a good way to grow as an entrepreneur, I will learn a lot, and I will scratch this itch.

What do you think? Any ideas how I could make this 30-day trial even more constructive? Suggestions on easy businesses to start? Would you like to partner with me on a business? This could be a legitimate way to get your site built without having to spend a dime

All feedback is welcome! I'm planning on starting the trial on February 20th, 2010.

[Rebecca800]

Excellent idea! I think this could be a very inspiring thread... I'm not even sure if there are 30 unique online business models - but I'm looking forward to finding out!!

[Isaac Ben]

Sound like fun. It will be cool to follow your progress. The challenge will also be quite difficult. Will they be 30 different business ideas?

[findinginspiration]

I think it's a great idea. I am in your same boat - always have lots of ideas - I just don't do the best job of capturing all of them and / or taking action on them.

I look forward to following this thread!

[Oleg]

Good idea. I'm looking forward to these ideas.

[Zaphod]

Sounds interesting if nothing else; I'll be sure to tune in. Is your goal to make money? One thought is that you could provide the summaries and then sell detailed business plans if someone is interested. I feel like there might be some unforeseen chinks in that process though. It would probably be better to work out some kind of partnership, as you said.

[icesar]

Thanks everybody. They will all be distinct ideas, though some are probably going to be similar models in different niches. As Rebecca pointed out, it's hard to find 30 different business models online. @Zaphod, the main goal is not to make money, but to improve my ability to execute on ideas. I want to get better at the Ready, Fire, Aim approach. Now, when I create some more recurring income in the process, I'm not going to complain.

[icesar]

Ok! I'm off to a good start. It's fun to work on these sites when I know my only priority is to get them done today and let them be. I realized that feeling the obligation to maintain something after I launch it slows me down and keeps from even making an attemp. Here are the first three projects:

Womens Bicycles
Residential Windmill
Electric Scooter Reviews

In all three cases I didn't get as much done as I would have liked (of course) but I am still happy with how productive I can be in a 4-5 hour block. The biggest part that I've been leaving out in all these projects is the marketing. They've all been set up with SEO in mind, but that is a waste if I don't go out and do some link building work for each of them.

[Zaphod]

Looks pretty productive to me. I actually now feel pretty inefficient in comparison.

Hey, do you have any method to your madness in how you choose affiliate programs? I read that a lot of them will simply reject your referral and say that it didn't count as a "true" referral or whatever. Amazon is always good because they are so large and trusted (by both merchants and customers), but the people you send need to buy something within 24 hours.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

Amazon is always good because they are so large and trusted (by both merchants and customers), but the people you send need to buy something within 24 hours.

Amazon's affiliate payment sucks

It is usually 15% or less, even as low as 5% I believe.

[Zaphod]

I'm pretty sure it is 4 percent to either 7.5 or 8 percent, depending on how many sales you have each month. I won't complain, because that means lower prices for the general population. If you are going to recommend a product anyway, it seems like an okay way to make a few bucks.

[CoolBee]

Fab idea - I might pinch it when I'm less overwhelmed! Or adapt it to mine.

[icesar]

Thanks guys! There is a method to my madness, but it doesn't have to do with the affiliate program so much as with the market opportunities. I'm doing keyword research to find high-value, low competition search phrases and then launching sites related to those keywords with the plan of winning some search engine traffic.

For monetization, I'm using Google Adsense and Amazon Associates because they're the easiest to set and forget and because as you said, they're trusted programs.

The commissions from Amazon do in fact start at 4%. But even that can add up! =)

Ok, two more to report:

The Dreamhost Coupon for 2010
Outdoor Solar Lights

Feedback, criticism, ideas (and cookies) are always welcome!

[icesar]

Originally Posted by CoolBee

Fab idea - I might pinch it when I'm less overwhelmed! Or adapt it to mine.

Thanks CoolBee! Let me know if you'd like to get involved =)

[AdamA]

Awesome idea. Let us know how it goes.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

I'm pretty sure it is 4 percent to either 7.5 or 8 percent, depending on how many sales you have each month. I won't complain, because that means lower prices for the general population. If you are going to recommend a product anyway, it seems like an okay way to make a few bucks.

That's even less than I expected


For the most part, if you show 1000 visitors a page with an Amazon affiliate link in it, versus showing 1000 visitors a page with one Adsense ad unit that is well-placed, I would guess that the page with the Adsense ad would earn more money than the Amazon affiliate link.

All a person has to do is click a link on Adsense, and you make money, whereas with Amazon they have to click a link, go to Amazon.com, use their credit card and actually buy something.

In my opinion, you should almost never bother with selling Amazon products as an affiliate, unless there is a 1-in-1000 exception where you can actually make more profits with Amazon.

[ValerieM]

Wow, that's ambitious!

Puts me to shame. It won't really matter if you didn't earn anything in the end, the learning experience will be priceless.

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

That's even less than I expected


For the most part, if you show 1000 visitors a page with an Amazon affiliate link in it, versus showing 1000 visitors a page with one Adsense ad unit that is well-placed, I would guess that the page with the Adsense ad would earn more money than the Amazon affiliate link.

All a person has to do is click a link on Adsense, and you make money, whereas with Amazon they have to click a link, go to Amazon.com, use their credit card and actually buy something.

In my opinion, you should almost never bother with selling Amazon products as an affiliate, unless there is a 1-in-1000 exception where you can actually make more profits with Amazon.

Well I'm not necessarily going to disagree, seeing as how I haven't monetized my own blog yet, but have you actually tested this out?

I mean, sure you'll get fewer amazon purchases per 1000 visitors than you will get adsense clicks, but each purchase will be worth more than a single adsense click. Some bloggers out there that I've read say that a significant portion of their income is attributed to Amazon. One neat thing is that if you send someone to amazon, and they shop around a bit and buy something else, you still get a fraction of it.

-peace

[xtheist]

Are these your own businesses and websites built by your or affilliate programmes? I'm intrigued!

[SatvikBeri]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

That's even less than I expected


For the most part, if you show 1000 visitors a page with an Amazon affiliate link in it, versus showing 1000 visitors a page with one Adsense ad unit that is well-placed, I would guess that the page with the Adsense ad would earn more money than the Amazon affiliate link.

All a person has to do is click a link on Adsense, and you make money, whereas with Amazon they have to click a link, go to Amazon.com, use their credit card and actually buy something.

In my opinion, you should almost never bother with selling Amazon products as an affiliate, unless there is a 1-in-1000 exception where you can actually make more profits with Amazon.

Not in my experience!

What makes Amazon awesome is that they have really high conversion rates. This is because almost everyone uses Amazon, and Amazon's website is amazingly well optimized. So while you might get 2% of people clicking on an AdSense ad, you can get maybe 4% clicking on your Amazon affiliate link and buying something, at higher profits per click.

Of course, this is extremely variable, but my point is just that Amazon's affiliate program isn't that bad.

[icesar]

Hi all, time for another update! Ok, the first piece of the update is that I now have nine sites live, one in progress, and about 5 others with the market-research phase and domain purchase completed. This means I'm technically 3 and 1/2 sites behind, but probably doing fine time-wise since I'll be able to launch the next five more quickly. I expect to catch up in the next 3 days.

Let's see... the first few sites I worked concept to launch all in the same day. It took about 4-6 hours per site, and it was a rewarding process because by the afternoon you've created something that didn't exist in the morning.

However, grouping the market research together definitely results in time-savings because you get into a research groove, and discover market opportunities that you weren't even looking for. (By market opportunities, I mean decent-volume, commercial-minded search phrases that don't have too much competition.) I've been using Market Samurai to do my research and I HIGHLY recommend it.

It's exciting to think where these sites might be in a year or two. In the last 4 years as a web designer I've launched maybe 5 projects on my own, and in the last 10 days I've tripled that. Interestingly, because I'm doing this in such a rush, I'm being more rigorous when choosing a market, which I think will make for potentially more profitable sites down the line, assuming I spend time to flesh them out and promote them. I've been thinking of leveraged ways I could do this for cheap or for free. Any ideas?

One of the site ALREADY ranks in the top 10 on Google for it's targeted search phrase, and all together the sites have already started earning money (ok, less than $3 but still).

Some of the downsides... I'm stressed. Work on my clients projects is suffering (but not terribly), I'm working much longer hours than I'm used to, and I'm sleeping less. I feel like I'm already a few sites behind, and I want so much to flesh out these sites and start promoting them, but obviously at the moment I don't have the time.

Another fun side effect is that my friends are all giving me business ideas that they have but don't make the time to work on, and some of them are pretty good.

Here are the next few sites, which fit in with one of my largest established projects, a travel guide to Argentina:

Brazil Vacation Packages♥|♥
Peru Vacations♥|♥
Miami Beach Vacation Packages
Isla Mujeres Hotels♥|♥

And now a plea for help! If ANY of the sites in this thread are relevant to one of your websites, I would love a link on the sidebar, or a quick mention in the post. Of course I can reciprocate the link from a couple of my many sites =) You can just let me know here or by PM and I will follow up!

Gracias.

[mattinglot]

Originally Posted by Requiem

Well I'm not necessarily going to disagree, seeing as how I haven't monetized my own blog yet, but have you actually tested this out?

I mean, sure you'll get fewer amazon purchases per 1000 visitors than you will get adsense clicks, but each purchase will be worth more than a single adsense click. Some bloggers out there that I've read say that a significant portion of their income is attributed to Amazon. One neat thing is that if you send someone to amazon, and they shop around a bit and buy something else, you still get a fraction of it.

-peace

I made a little money from Amazon affiliates by always linking to Amazon whenever discussing a book. This usually meant < $1 commission (Amazon book prices are amazingly low), but occasionally someone would spend several hundred or in one case, more than $1,000. That was always really fun. I never ran the stats, but I suspect an 80-20 type rule may have emerged where 80% of the revenue comes from the 20% that buy more than just the $10 book...

[icesar]

Update: 3 sites now receiving (a little) search engine traffic, adsense revenue for all sites up to $6, no Amazon purchases yet, but a few clicks on the affiliate links. Catching up slowly (2 full sites behind, a few in progress).

The latest: Capoeira Music

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by icesar

Update: 3 sites now receiving (a little) search engine traffic, adsense revenue for all sites up to $6, no Amazon purchases yet, but a few clicks on the affiliate links. Catching up slowly (2 full sites behind, a few in progress).

The latest: Capoeira Music

I don't know how viable the "30 businesses in 30 days" idea is, but I respect you for actually going through with it.

Rock on

[icesar]

Another quick update: 17 sites are up. I chose to focus on paying work for the last week, so I took a break, but I still plan to finish. In fact, I have another 15 ideas already researched and the domains purchased.

[icesar]

In case anyone is wondering what has become of this project, here's an update. Basically, after more or less finishing half the sites, I admitted to myself that I was falling too far behind on my webdesign work for clients, so I had to put this 30-day challenge on the back burner. I'm still coming back to it when the time allows, and plan to complete it in the next couple of months with a few work "sprints."

I've already researched the topics for all the remaining topics and bought the domains. (In fact, I've researched and bought domains for 44 projects. Yes, I got a little zealous.)

The experience has been rewarding in that I confirmed and connected with some of my strengths. I know that I'm good at starting new things and at doing research and analyzing options. I tend to look at the downsides of these strengths, namely that I have a hard time finishing projects and that I often get stuck in "analysis-paralysis." Here, I gave myself the chance to use these strengths without judging the downsides. This is how I ended up researching and getting started on 44 projects. It's also why I was able to go from idea to live site in about a half a day (Keep in mind these are very simple sites.)

Not to mention, I feel like I've built a very real asset. As a whole, the sites are producing about $30 a month with virtually no extra marketing or link-building, and with brand new domains (if you know SEO, you know this is a huge strike against you). So my prediction if I do a fair bit of link-building and value-building on these sites and if I hold on to them for 1-3 years is nothing but positive. At worst, they will have a decent resale value of a few hundred dollars and at best they will be solid income generating sites.

If you have any questions about the 30-day trial, my process in researching and building the sites, etc. please feel free to get in touch.

Here are a few more that have been launched since the last post!

Adventure Travel Insurance Options | AdventureTravelInsurance.org
Laser Eye Surgery Cost - LowCostLasik.com
Send a Free Text Message Via the Internet (old site was down, re-launched)

[InterfaceLeader]

This is absolutely *amazing* and so inspiring! Thanks so much for sharing this trial with us

I'd be really interested in hearing how you fair with the earnings - and it must be nice to know that anytime you have a quiet day on the client side, you can build another money-making website

[CoolBee]

Brilliant! Very inspiring.

[Sean123]

WOW! This really is impressive. I can imagine that you're knackered - but I hope you make it to the 30. then you've got all that SEO to do I suppose.
I hope you update again soon.

tigersleap.com

[AdamA]

Not to mention, I feel like I've built a very real asset. As a whole, the sites are producing about $30 a month with virtually no extra marketing or link-building, and with brand new domains (if you know SEO, you know this is a huge strike against you).

Kudos icesar....This is a great accomplishment, especially considering how challenging it was. Inspiring!