Hi guys. In 4 weeks, i finish university, damn 4 years gone. <-- Belive it or not, i've learnt more on my own, in my own time that i think will be more benifit in my future. I've learnt flash -- made games, sold them. I've learnt PHP/SQL -- made my own scripts, sites, stuff. SEO -- Some of my sites are doing ok. In total, right now, i make $130 a month from my sites. Anyway, my parents have been kind, and given me 1 year, where i do not have to pay rent, or anything, all i have to do is what i've talked about doing for the past 4 years -- start my own business. The trouble is, im having doubts now, if i could actually live off the web. I would need to make $100 a day by the end of the "free" year. I think i know a bit about the web now. BUT i still only use adsense. all the other PPC programms seem to pay less (i'm in the UK, so no yahoo for me) Any advice would be great! -- even if its negative, i want to hear everything. Im thinking of just making more decent websites. Buying websites, doing them up, etc. I dont want to do ebay, or make games and sell them, its a lot of work, and not usally much money. Thanks for any help. Regards.
my advice is to look hard for a full time job while you do this...most startup businesses fail (or take a LONG time to pick up). Also, taking a year off is a very bad idea, for laziness purposes. You'll have no motivation to work at all after that year is up. Today's market is too competitive to not be 'out there'!
lol, cheers markn26, my university could have actually helped me get a full time job, but i thought i'm never going to get a full year again to start a business. I'm going to be sticking to somthing while i get started. - i've read on here that its long hours, i dont mind this at all. I already but lots of hours into my sites. So i shouldnt get too lasy
100 dollars a day in one year? Very possible. As long as your serious about what you are doing, and you have the will to better yourself and your income. Then nothing is impossible. If you got from 0 dollars a month to 130 dollars a month. That means you are doing something right. So you have a year now, I want to see you back here in this same thread telling me King you were right... Good luck, and believe in yourself never thinking for one second that you can fail. King
$100 a day is a lofty goal but possible. Everything is relative. If you mad $1500 a month you could live somewhere tropical like a king or like a bum in L.A or New York. Don't be scared to go where your life takes you. Just stick to it and think "SUSTAINABLE GROWTH". You'll do fine.
I think you should start with narrowing down what you want to do. You can do coding and SEO and make your own sites. So do you want to build an online empire with your own sites, or do just client work? The second question is are you sure you want to be 100% devoted to this right off the bat? There's alot of advantages to running a business in your spare time and working for somebody else (i.e. benefits, guaranteed salary, etc). I created my business while I was in university and have only really worked on it part time since then and it's quite successful (I don't know the daily volume, but last year I did over $100k from my business, plus my salary working for somebody full time).
I'm on the same path as you... Eventually will be out of college (Comp Sci, woot!) and want to start my own business. I think what you're shooting for is very reasonable, but as already mentioned you may want to consider picking up another part time job until your own startup picks up. If anything, you can use the money you make from your full time job to fund your websites Good luck man, keep us up to date on how it goes! I'm very interested If you don't mind me asking, what's your business? Success stories, especially ones started at the university level are quite interesting to me
cocoMonkey, we are in very similar situation - I have plan for this year to successfully get my online business rolling - I already have one website which makes about 100-150 dollars a month, so I guess I will build on top of that. Good luck!
I started in web development and programming. Back then there was a huge demand for scripts since there weren't alot of freely available software packages to run websites with. But I hate coding and only do if when I need to. So I shifted over to internet marketing and built up a small group of clients. Right now I offer internet marketing consulting mostly, as alot of my time is spent working on my own sites now. Basically I'm an outsourced marketing department for businesses. Alot of small companies can't afford a full marketing team, so I come in and do it for them at pricing that works for them. I have clients paying anywhere from $500-$5000/month depending on what is being done, and a few that pay $15k+/month. I have about a dozen staff that work on various projects for me, some are full time, some are part time.
I graduate in 2 years and will be starting my own business when I graduate. However, I am going to work for 2-3 years in a related field while I write my business plan and do the planning of the business. That way I get experience and capital, which are (usually) essentials in starting and running a successful business. It takes a LONG time to write a business plan, and at the end of your "free year" your business should just be about ready to start. However, you are going to need capital for it, so where do you plan to get it. Just remember, that there are others on the internet that can probably do the same thing as you can for MUCH cheaper - unless you offer something new. Best of luck!
Thanks so much guys! these posts are very encouraging. It's good to hear so many others have been there already and made it. Cheers!
coco - bear in mind that these are just a few successful people. Probably 999/1000 businesses fail when it comes to the Internet. Don't let yourself fall victim to the hype and don't buy those stupid "How to make $1 Million!" ebooks. It takes alot of hard work, plain and simple. My business is successful, but I've been running it for over 10 years and I never once quit my day job while doing it just in case.
haha, nah, dont worry mate, im past that phase. I've spent a lot of time reading DP, and have 4 years of experiance now, so i should be ok. -- its just the actual making it pay that im worried about. Cheers again mate.
cocomonkey, definitely you will need to give a start now or even today. And only time will answer you. As far as i know it definitely takes about 2+ years to extract $1000+ a month. I am not sure if it is possible in one year frame of time. Nobody knows for certain. All that matters is to give a kickstart as early as possible without wasting time. Good Luck!!!
It's very possible. It depends on how determined you are to reach your goal, how much you're willing to risk and how much you believe in yourself and your websites. The only time I have made good money ($70-$80 per day consistently) was when I was right on the edge, my savings were in there, I had no money left, I had to succeed. What I do is browse the buy and sell forums to see what is making money and how easy it is to compete in that field. Live this 'free' year like it's the only chance you will have to succeed. Good Luck
Very cool. I started off with web development when I got my first computer at the age of 9 Now i'm moving over to the other areas of web entrepreneurship
What an opportunity! Advice: #1. Promote something you love, something that drives you, that you could talk for hours about. #2. Promote just that thing...don't bunny trail. The internet will try to pull you in a million different directions and give you all kinds of promises. Don't go there. Make a mission statement for the year and then break it down to the week. Focus on making that goal each week....don't follow that bunny! #3. You mentioned you're thinking about buying an established site. There is a reason someone is selling the site in the first place. Really good businesses /sites get passed on to family or friends, they don't get sold to strangers (my opinion). Better idea: If you find a site/business that is doing well then there is probably room for a start up in the same market. Instead of spending loads of money buying a site, spend it on promoting your own start-up. That way you aren't buying someone's hidden headache. Good luck to you!
I don't buy this. What should drive you in business is making money. It is not a hobby / past time and certainly does not have to be enjoyable. I guess it depends on the kind of person you are and how motivated and determined you are. If you can motivate yourself to work on something which is not massively interesting (but money is to be made), then go for it.