Startups: Problems? Struggle? Doubts? Post'em here!

[Ingenius]

As I've been browsing this section of the boards (I'm more familiar with the IM section and the spiritual/awareness section), I got interested in knowing if I could help people in here with something.

That is why I have started this thread. I would like to know about people's worries when starting up a business, especially online.

I have been working in marketing online and setting up websites for more than a decade, so I think that I might provide some answers and help you out, in case that you need help.

So, I would like to start from the basics.

1) Have you thought about starting up your own website?
2) What kind of project/site would you like to start?
3) What doubts and problems hold you back?
4) Do you have a project already but it's not working as expected? Tell us about it.

This thread is meant to start a conversation on startups and see what kind of trouble people have, blocks that might get in the way of developing some projects, and hopefully provide some help.

If I can't help myself, I'm sure that some other fellow forumers can jump in and provide some answers or hints to keep us going.

What do you think?

[Kaie]

Well, I dropped the ball with my life coaching site, it is in my siggie. I actually have had some things happen in my own life and have had to put helping others on hold. I knw I need to generate more content, what are your observations?

On the other hand, my hair site Goddess of Hair I am happier with that site, but am not sure about content to add, and monetization.

I am currently also working on building a site that is a passion of mine, a natural food/weight loss site (SBI)

I know it sounds like a lot, but I am determined to make part of my living through my sites.

Any advice/ideas?

[Ingenius]

Hi, Kaie, thanks for sharing your projects!!

I have taken a look to both projects, the life coaching one seems more "in place", it is more structured and there are some more content, mainly in the blog section.

However, the first thing I get from both sites is that somehow you started off with energy but your enthusiasm slowly faded away. It might be just an impression, but it tells me that you would love to be that creative life teacher but then you had second thoughts and stopped.

First off, pick one of those two sites, the one you feel more comfortable with, and decide if you want to go on with it. Mind that anyone can master any field, so don't feed your doubts about you being capable of doing it, you CAN do it. The most important thing is that you feel good about it, you feel passionate about it in one way or another.

Pick just one, you will have time to work on the other, but working on one project at a time will help you focus.

Now: content and monetization. If you want to monetize your site, you have to understand your audience. Who are they? What are they looking for? Look for already existing problems and needs, and put those in paper. Once you have the problems and needs, you can identify ways to solve those problems and more importantly, ways in which being helpful to your audience you can make money.

In short:

1) Pick one project at a time to help you invest your best on it.
2) Think about your audience and depict the average customer. If you can't, this is probably due to the fact that you are picking a too broad market, you have to narrow down to a specific sector of that market until you can imagine a person in your audience.
3) Identify problems and needs that these people already have.
4) Look for products or services you could offer to solve those problems.
5) Write about those problems and provide solutions.

This is generally speaking, we can discuss particulars if you want.

I hope this helps,

Daniel.

[Kaie]

Thank you for looking

I did drop the ball, and it was because of an extreme run of unfortunate things that happened in my life. I am not sure why I am drawing all of this unrest, but it stopped me in my tracks.

The hair is what I have been doing for a long while. I basically want a static website with no blog to keep up with, but was thinking about adding a few articles about natural and organic products, and maybe start an affiliate program with some of the companies I like that offer what I recommend. I am not sure what else I would do to monetize the hair site.

The Creative Life Coaching is on a temporary hold while I get things together for myself.

The natural food/weight loss site is something I feel optimistic about, but am only in the brainstorming stage, and organizing ideas.

I will put time into writing articles, and whatever else I need to do. I just want to create a stream of income that way.

The LCoaching site will be the one I really focus on for now though, but how do I help others when I am in such a mess (yes, another thing happened today that shook me to the core, so that is why I wait)

I will consider the things you say, and see what problems I can solve. I will also see if I can narrow down my niche market (which I had worked on by focusing on creative types) I guess I need to put more thought/ energy into it. Perhaps that is when my own luck/life will turn around.

[Johnny Metal]

Started my Personal Development/Rockstar website in april.

No problems or struggles here, just joy and peace of mind knowing that as long make another step towards my goal, and reassess-readjust my course when I get lost, I will get to the destination.

Also, no matter how bad the events in my life get, I can find solace in the fact that I can at least work on my business, make some progress, and feel good about it all day.

Take a look at my awesome project: www. Johnny Metal .org

[Ingenius]

@Kaie: I think that you sum up everything in here: "I just want to create a stream of income that way". You see, if this is the sole reason for you keeping up with your projects, it won't be easy and it won't flow accordingly.

Monetization: If you want to monetize but you don't know how, then I have a suggestion. Normally there are communities around certain topics. Get into a forum related to your topic and look around. There are ads showing in the forums with products that probably sell, and your experience can help you evaluate if they are really useful and worth recommending.

Content: People talk about their problems and ask questions, that will give you some ideas on how to help them and what you can write about. You will also get a better impression about their lacks and needs, and how you can offer services on solving those.

Work on it: When you get the ideas, then you have to provide quality to obtain quality, that's something I have learnt myself the hard way. If you don't create some quality content and offer quality services, you won't get very far. That's where loving what you do kicks in: when you love, you care, and thus you craft beautiful things out of love. You can also change "love" for "joy": you can try and set up a challenge for yourself and get excited about it, so you enjoy the process, which is basically what gives sense to life.

About your personal problems, don't let them be the reason for you to wait on life. I know it's easy to say, I often use a quick process in order to make up my mind that it might help: your life situation is often a result of the way you look at reality. So, I look at that particular way of understanding things, and I mentally re-write certain part of the story.

In short, the process consists on looking at the whole thing differently. First I think that I am the primary cause for the problem to happen (not the culprit, mind you). Some decision or desire of mine has triggered the situation, and that helps me gain control over what is going on. Then, I continue my reasoning, if I am the one that triggered the situation, I have had a good reason for it. So I elaborate further on: if my partner has left me, maybe there is some good opportunities that I would like to experience and this is the only good way to do so. Then I start imagining desirable outcomes that could happen from this seemingly bad situation, so in my mind the bad situation is the source for new good things to happen. I recommend that you do this adding strong will of certainty, believe that what you depict is what really happens, consider it as very possible outcome for your reality, even if it's not the only one, focus on this outcome and pay some attention to it instead of getting back to thinking how shaking your old perspective is (there is a default mechanism that tends to put your back to your old pattern of thinking, so just reinforce attention on the new perspective to settle it in).

For a nice story of how seemingly tragic turn of events could turn into great opportunities, I recommend Steve Job's speech at Stanford University (RIP Stevie!), where he explains how getting fired from Apple (the company that he started himself!!), was one of the best thing to happen in his life.

I hope this helps,

Daniel.

[Ingenius]

@Johnny: Good to hear that you're on such a nice road to success. You look like a rockstar in the picture, I was in Greece last week and it seems that greeks are quite into metal. You're greek, right?

I have a quick suggestion to make, if you want to easily improve your site on the visual side. Your blog's outfit is not as outstanding as your content. I would recommend you to look around for a better wordpress template, for example the guys at woothemes make excellent and visual appealing themes with lots of features.

Although these guys sell most of the themes available, you can also get some free themes which are really, really good. Take a look and see if this could help you improve your site even more.

This is not an affiliate link, btw.

I hope this helps,

Daniel.

[hervens]

4) Do you have a project already but it's not working as expected? Tell us about it.

Yes. I launched my website: KissMyBooBoo.net about a year ago, and so far i'm getting a steady 1000 - 2000 visitors/month and about 5-7k pageviews/month. But the problem is my users seem so focused on the complaints on the website that they don't notice my ads Like, I'm lucky if I even manage to get $10/month from google adsense

Second, I launched my first BlackBerry app, "Total Converter" on the BlackBerry app world, and my sales were excellent. I sold over 30 copies the first day the app came out.
So, thinking I've found my niche, I released a second app, "The 1 million plan", but i'm getting virtually no sales with this app, especially considering the fact that I think it brings in more value than the first one.

So, I'm working on a third app and we'll see how well that one goes =p

[Kaie]

Originally Posted by Ingenius

@Kaie: I think that you sum up everything in here: "I just want to create a stream of income that way". You see, if this is the sole reason for you keeping up with your projects, it won't be easy and it won't flow accordingly.

Monetization: If you want to monetize but you don't know how, then I have a suggestion. Normally there are communities around certain topics. Get into a forum related to your topic and look around. There are ads showing in the forums with products that probably sell, and your experience can help you evaluate if they are really useful and worth recommending.

Content: People talk about their problems and ask questions, that will give you some ideas on how to help them and what you can write about. You will also get a better impression about their lacks and needs, and how you can offer services on solving those.

Work on it: When you get the ideas, then you have to provide quality to obtain quality, that's something I have learnt myself the hard way. If you don't create some quality content and offer quality services, you won't get very far. That's where loving what you do kicks in: when you love, you care, and thus you craft beautiful things out of love. You can also change "love" for "joy": you can try and set up a challenge for yourself and get excited about it, so you enjoy the process, which is basically what gives sense to life.

About your personal problems, don't let them be the reason for you to wait on life. I know it's easy to say, I often use a quick process in order to make up my mind that it might help: your life situation is often a result of the way you look at reality. So, I look at that particular way of understanding things, and I mentally re-write certain part of the story.

In short, the process consists on looking at the whole thing differently. First I think that I am the primary cause for the problem to happen (not the culprit, mind you). Some decision or desire of mine has triggered the situation, and that helps me gain control over what is going on. Then, I continue my reasoning, if I am the one that triggered the situation, I have had a good reason for it. So I elaborate further on: if my partner has left me, maybe there is some good opportunities that I would like to experience and this is the only good way to do so. Then I start imagining desirable outcomes that could happen from this seemingly bad situation, so in my mind the bad situation is the source for new good things to happen. I recommend that you do this adding strong will of certainty, believe that what you depict is what really happens, consider it as very possible outcome for your reality, even if it's not the only one, focus on this outcome and pay some attention to it instead of getting back to thinking how shaking your old perspective is (there is a default mechanism that tends to put your back to your old pattern of thinking, so just reinforce attention on the new perspective to settle it in).

For a nice story of how seemingly tragic turn of events could turn into great opportunities, I recommend Steve Job's speech at Stanford University (RIP Stevie!), where he explains how getting fired from Apple (the company that he started himself!!), was one of the best thing to happen in his life.

I hope this helps,

Daniel.

Thank you so much, Daniel.

The income is definitely not the only reason for the sites, I am passionate about each subject. I think I will start rethinking today how I can create quality content.

You have good advice, I am taking it to heart and off to find some forums now xo

[Ingenius]

@Hervens: Thanks for sharing. That's a very interesting idea, how did you get to develop such a project? Looks like a site that basically allows people to write rants down. I see potential in that. I'm curious about how you have put together this kind of site and you also have developed Blackberry apps. I imagine that programming is one of your skills, isn't it?

Well, as for a monetisation strategy based on adsense, it works better on certain fields than others. Adsense relies on your content to display related ads relevant to the audience that visits your site. Sometimes, however, the system doesn't get it right, or some other times it is difficult to display ads that are really relevant for the kind of audience that you have.

However, don't give up just yet, just try to improve that specific stream of income that you have already set up. Worst case scenario, you will keep getting 10 bucks per month, which pays "the rent" for the hosting costs, and you can always look for alternate streams of income to implement that could work better in your specific niche.

My suggestion here is to start from where you are, and go on modifying and tweaking the adsense. For example, I see that there is a box on the right side that display ads. That's not much and people could miss them. Try changing locations or adding new spaces where the ads could be easily detected. Also, there is a code that you can implement within your content to tell Google what your site is about, and thus help them to display more relevant ads.

Here is how you can stress out certain sections of your content in order to tell Google what your site is about, and thus show improved contextual ads that attract people's interest:

The HTML tags to emphasize a page section take the following format:

<!- google_ad_section_start ->
<!- google_ad_section_end ->

If you want Google to ignore specific sections of your site when targeting ads you need to use the following comment tag:

<!- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) ->

However, I must tell you that adwords is only one way of monetising. I would go deeper and look for products/services that could help your audience. They are telling you exactly what their problems are, so it should be easier, from there you can look for solutions and present to them. That would be much more significant when it comes to making money out of your site, and way more helpful to your audience.

As for the Blackberry apps... well, I'm not an expert about it. But I get the feeling that you are missing an important aspect in the process: testing your assumptions. You say that you think "it brings more value", well... so often we believe that certain ideas are good enough but maybe in the end people is not that interested, so it is always better to test our ideas to see if they have legs, so to speak.

Many businesses rise and fall because of this, people believe in something but don't take the time to test and run some numbers about the size of the potential market that they are trying to reach. This, of course, could be a long discussion and there is a lot to know. Very creative process as well, thinking about ways to test your assumptions.

Here's an interesting article related to this:

How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas)

Will you tell us how it goes?

Cheers,

Daniel.

[hervens]

Thank you so much for the tips and the feedbacks Ingenious

Originally Posted by Ingenius

That's a very interesting idea, how did you get to develop such a project? Looks like a site that basically allows people to write rants down. I see potential in that. I'm curious about how you have put together this kind of site and you also have developed Blackberry apps. I imagine that programming is one of your skills, isn't it?

Your're right, programming is one of my skills. I created the theme of the website using photoshop, I use MySQL as the database, and I coded everything in visual studio using asp.net and c#
The BlackBerry apps were coded in java me (micro edition), using using a helpful BlackBerry api from rim.

And btw, thank you so much for telling me about the html tags, that I can use to emphasis a particular section of the site. I personally never knew about that, and I'm looking forward to implementing it.

[alexb5784]

Having spent 9 years being an entrepreneur and working for high-tech start ups, I've found the biggest problems to be:

1. Not marketing to the right people and trying to sell to every ****ing one.
2. Focusing only on making money and not providing a marketable service.
3. Doing what makes you happy but not what the market cares about.
4. Focusing too much on web design, SEO, PPC, and all that other BS without doing any real work.
5. Not wanting to market at all and waiting for customers to come to your door.
6. Not charging what you're worth and working with pain-in-the-butt clients.
7. Working with pain-in-the-butt clients because you don't think you can get better ones. Depending on these clients for all of your income.
8. Focusing on crap that doesn't matter, like social media and SEO when you should be out in the world, knocking on doors, making phone calls, and asking for business.
9. Wanting to make six figures ASAP without having a plan that you stick with, revamp, correct, and improve over time.
10. Holding on to a business model that sucks because you're too proud to admit that you've wasted a lot of time. Admit you've made a mistake and then correct it. It's OK to be a failure.

And the BIGGEST surefire way to complete FAILURE....

* Waiting for the perfect time to start your business by avoiding getting started in the first place.

Alright, I'm creating a free audio about this. I love talking about this stuff. Be back in 10 hours with a free audio and workbook in my forum signature.

- Alex

[clove]

Originally Posted by alexb5784

Having spent 9 years being an entrepreneur and working for high-tech start ups, I've found the biggest problems to be:

1. Not marketing to the right people and trying to sell to every ****ing one.
2. Focusing only on making money and not providing a marketable service.
3. Doing what makes you happy but not what the market cares about.
4. Focusing too much on web design, SEO, PPC, and all that other BS without doing any real work.
5. Not wanting to market at all and waiting for customers to come to your door.
6. Not charging what you're worth and working with pain-in-the-butt clients.
7. Working with pain-in-the-butt clients because you don't think you can get better ones. Depending on these clients for all of your income.
8. Focusing on crap that doesn't matter, like social media and SEO when you should be out in the world, knocking on doors, making phone calls, and asking for business.
9. Wanting to make six figures ASAP without having a plan that you stick with, revamp, correct, and improve over time.
10. Holding on to a business model that sucks because you're too proud to admit that you've wasted a lot of time. Admit you've made a mistake and then correct it. It's OK to be a failure.

And the BIGGEST surefire way to complete FAILURE....

* Waiting for the perfect time to start your business by avoiding getting started in the first place.

Alright, I'm creating a free audio about this. I love talking about this stuff. Be back in 10 hours with a free audio and workbook in my forum signature.

- Alex

This dude with women's glasses has it down. Where's the audio and workbook?

[ssandra]

Hi,

My website is www.intimacyandromance.com and I would like to get more visitors.

What do you think is the best way to go for this site?

I am not interested in making it a blog, because I will actually have to regularly update it, therefor it is called Articles, not blog.

Any ideas?

So far I am considering guest posting and facebook adds (that go to my facebook page, they like that one, and from there get access to my website)

Any other comments welcome as well!

[alexb5784]

I should use another picture because I'm actually a woman. Hmm, maybe I'll take some new pictures this week end, LMAO!!!!

I'm creating the audio right now as we speak...

[Ingenius]

Originally Posted by ssandra

Hi,

My website is www.intimacyandromance.com and I would like to get more visitors.

What do you think is the best way to go for this site?

I am not interested in making it a blog, because I will actually have to regularly update it, therefor it is called Articles, not blog.

Any ideas?

So far I am considering guest posting and facebook adds (that go to my facebook page, they like that one, and from there get access to my website)

Any other comments welcome as well!

Well, I don't know where to start, nor what kind of advice you're seeking here. So I will give my impression in general terms, and we can take it from there if you want.

On the getting people to know you side, you said it yourself: guest posting and ads are always good ways to spread the word. Many people also add a blog because it appeals to a random number of ways in which you can also be found, you know, people looking for something stumble onto one of your posts and then they get interested.

Best way to get people to know you is you getting to know them in the first place. This is why hanging around forums and other communities, and taking a look to other people in a similar niche as yours, are unvaluable ways to improve and allow people to get to you naturally.

If you want some piece of advice, develop a plan on how people will come (i.e: they will be coming over from forums like this one), think about what free stuff you could be providing so they actually get eager to go to your place (this will increase the chances for other people to promote your site for free, and decrease bounce rate and untargeted/uninterested traffic), and you will be halfway to having a successful site.

One aspect that I would improve in your particular case is the visual aspect, you can do better and look better with simple tweaks here and there.

I hope this helps,

Daniel.

[Ingenius]

Originally Posted by alexb5784

[*] Doing what makes you happy but not what the market cares about.

Alex is clearly right about many of her points, I would only comment on this one. Having a passion and finding a way to make your living out of it is something really important, in my opinion.

I understand that ONLY focusing on what makes you happy without looking for ways to making it sustainable as a way of living is not productive. But chances are that you can find your passion and find a way in which the market could profit from it.

This case scenario will skyrocket your chances of success and happiness.

In a certain way... it's already here.

Thanks for your insights, Alex, we are looking forward to that audio

Cheers,

Daniel.

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by Ingenius

Well, I don't know where to start, nor what kind of advice you're seeking here. So I will give my impression in general terms, and we can take it from there if you want.

That many things to change he?

One aspect that I would improve in your particular case is the visual aspect, you can do better and look better with simple tweaks here and there.

I hope this helps,

Daniel.

What kind of tweaks would you recommend?

Thank you for the suggestion of finding other forums, I hadn't thought about that.

The main reason why I have "articles" instead of a blog is because I don't like being tied down by having a certain number of posts per week or month. I know I won't keep up with that, so better not start it in the first place.

I do have articles, so that 1. I can help people 2. people find me via the search engines and 3. people get to know me via my writing.

Thank you for your comments so far. Very valuable!

[Ingenius]

Originally Posted by ssandra

What kind of tweaks would you recommend?

Well, as Pavlina himself is doing today, changing the header would help. It looks unprofessional. Then you can also look for better templates for your site, you can look at WooThemes | Premium WordPress Themes for example, as I suggested above.

Originally Posted by ssandra

The main reason why I have "articles" instead of a blog is because I don't like being tied down by having a certain number of posts per week or month. I know I won't keep up with that, so better not start it in the first place.

The rules are meant to be broken. People will suggest that you HAVE to write three times a week or any other "classic" rule, but those are just paths that you can choose to take... or leave. There is plenty of proof of people doing exactly the opposite, and still doing well. So don't worry that much about blogging or not.

What matters, if you are willing to make money, is first of all, is that you have some valuable, high-quality product for a certain amount of people. Then, it should be in your best interest that these people actually want your product, and you have the structures implemented for them to get to your product easy and quick.

This is why it is highly recommended that you think about your customers, identify who you are offering services/products to, and then work your way backwards to set up your business in order to provide and make money from it.

Cheers,

Daniel.

[ssandra]

Thank you.

I actually really like my header... I'll take your feedback into consideration though. Maybe something that isn't a picture and more simple would work better..?

Anyway... what about my site gives you the idea that I don't have my client in mind when I am writing?

About products, they are in the making. My main "product" right now is my coaching.

[alexb5784]

ssandra,

You can have a crappy header or a great one, it doesn't matter. As long as people can read your content and they like it, you're golden. Steve's website is ugly but I've been an avid reader since 2006. I love his articles, they help me. His website is simple and it's easy for me to fly through the content.

On the other hand, I often get confused when I visit most blogs. People either have too much stuff in the side bar, ads all over the place (I'm pro Advertising by the way), links I that send me to twenty seven different places, pop ups that make me run away, and so forth.

Your site is simple. I know where stuff is. I don't waste time. I like that

PS: I like your videos.

[clove]

Originally Posted by alexb5784

I should use another picture because I'm actually a woman. Hmm, maybe I'll take some new pictures this week end, LMAO!!!!

I'm creating the audio right now as we speak...

You are a handsome woman. Or a beautiful man.