Online business - My experience

[dh5114]

Hello!

First I'd like to say "Hi" to all here. It's a great place to spend time on and I've already gained a lot of value from this forum.

I'd like to share my experience on starting an online business. I've had many failures and I've learned a lot from them. But one thing that really lead me to success was Steve's words: "Create and Deliver real value".

Prior to that, I'd jump on any opportunity that would cross my way. I'd go "this is a great idea, I'll start working on it right away." And I did.

In 99% of time, I would make the product half way or maybe even more, just to see if I could pull-it. I never really followed the "value" path. I always wondered why people don't see the same value in my ideas as I do.

With time I got tired of this jumping from project to project. I really like when I'm starting with a blank sheet of paper in front of me, pouring ideas and dreaming what could be the best product I could make.

Instead, with my latest product, I didn't jump right into it. No, I've checked few forums, looked if there was an interest - in other words, were people asking for solution to their problems regarding this subject.

When I found there was a need, I checked what solutions are available. There was 10 or even more products that dealt with this subject. I've checked them all, read their sales letters and extracted the bullet points to separate sheet of paper.

After examining those bullet points and cross-referencing them with questions I've found on the forums, I saw there was a big gap.

People were asking for apples, products delivered meat. No wonder people were unhappy with them.

So I slowly started working on my solution, asking myself "Will what I'm doing now add value to users" on every step I made. Sure, I had to make a lot of turns and twists in my product because I would find myself working on something that would not provide any value at all.

This was a wake up call for me. In all my decisions what and how the product should do and look like, I've always found the right answer by skimming over questions and rants people wrote in the forums.

If there was something that I've put in "just because" it would be cool feature to have it, I knew I was wrong. People don't need cool, they need their problem solved.

So I've made my first public post about my product (at this time still with only core functionality) and I got rave response. Then I realized I've created something people actually need.

From that moment on, all I did was repeating the question "Will people receive value from what I'm doing now".

If not, I would stop immediately and went over my list of questions from forums and bullet points from other products sales pages. Sure enough, I could always find an answer to "What should I do next".

A word about how I market my product. I don't.

Some are so excited about it (I have hard time imagine why, but I won't complain) they're blogging about it, comment on the forums and tweeting about it.

In all my previous attempts of "make it online" I've had hard time getting people to pay me for my products. Only after I took the "create and deliver real value" to my heart, things started to change - rapidly.

I guess things should not be _that_ different with anyone else. Right Steve?

[WorkitSmart]

Interesting post!

and after reading it, of course I want to see some of your sites.. Why don't you add one or two to your posts so we can see? I think you are right on target with 'adding value' and 'solving people's problems'

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[dh5114]

What really matter is that I've learned my lesson the hard way and I want others to have it easier by providing my experience.

My site is about getting traffic to your site via viral ebook rebranding. There are tons of ebook rebranding software, but I've pick the best features from all of them and pack it togeter in a way that really provides lot's of value to the user.

I don't want this to sound like blatant promotion, but to lay it out for all that if you help solve people's problems, they will gladly pull out their wallets and pay you for your knowledge/product/service/coaching/etc.

Of course, you can always chase quick buck, like I did. It never worked out the way I imagined or wanted.