I'm 18 also and great advice. Some of the things I gave up on in the past few years may have made me quite a bit of money now. I kick myself for not staying on board, but I can't give up. I have to make up for what I didn't succeed in. Now I know it was just because not so smart, but I'm learning every day. If I had the knowledge 3 years ago that I do know I would have made tons of money. My advice to everyone is to never give up. Maybe it's just an other month, another year before you see some kind of success but if you keep trying you'll eventually get somewhere. And remember: Force + Knowledge = Success
Sweet, thanks. You shouldn't envy me, I'm all talk and no do. Clinton don't say that though because you'll get me lazy. Sometimes I get the mindset that I have all this time before I start making money, because of my age, when I could be doing it now!
few tips as you are 13... domains usually gain value over time, so think of 10 topics you really love or are interested in and buy relevant domain names. Perhaps start by adding a blog into each of them, by just writing one short article on each a week they will build overtime. are you familiar with affiliate marketing, if not do a little search online to find out more (cj is a good start). you can plug in advertising which is relevant to your niche/website and you can earn money from this. myspace is a good option, you can plug in google adsense and or affiliate marketing ads. search online for affiliate marketing a great place to start
Just don't waste time lol. I know it's hard to stay motivated(especially if you live with parents who support you etc.) Just work as hard as you can to stay a head One thing to keep in mind is to take your work seriously. I don't know if it's just comes as you get older but when I was around 16-17 when I started just doing the best I could. Thats another key.
*DING* Got another idea. Now I have a total of 7 e-based ideas. But anyway, relevant to the comments: Digimac, THAT'S GENIUS! I think I'll do that, and as I get older gradually build the websites until I can spend more time on them and develop them more! Sheesh you're smart! Clinton, thanks! I really want to show my Dad up. He's a really smart amateur investor who learned in a matter of months, and I really want to show him that I can make independent money too, smartly.
Hello mate, I started my entrepreneurship at the age of 13, as well. I played the MMORPG Runescape and developed a bot for it, so that the leveling process would be automated. I made a good profit from that, but then Jagex started complaining to the website that I listed the bot on, and I got banned. After that, I started getting involved in niches that I knew; for example, web hosting or computer related services. Prior to the age of 15, I only got involved in what I knew a great deal about. Once I saved up enough money ($3,000), I purchased an arcade website (in signature), which was my biggest mistake. I had no clue how to market the website nor knew anything about arcade websites. I was foolish and naive, and just believed that because the previous owner was making a good amount of money, I would be making that too. Since then, I have tried to make the website profitable, but have been unsuccessful. If anyone has any advice for me too, regarding the arcade website; it would be appreciated. Best Wishes, DJ
This thread has been really inspiring to me so thanks everyone for that. I love to hear stories of young entrepreneurs because I started making money online when I was around 14 or 15. That was over 7 years ago and I've made plenty of mistakes in that time, so maybe I can help you guys out and give you some advice. First and foremost, don't give up on your ideas. If I would have kept developing that one little website I started when I was 13, there's no doubt in my mind that I would be retired right now at 22. But instead of sticking with it, I flipped the site to make some quick cash (a very large amount of cash for a kid my age) and then blew it on I don't even remember what. I made the crucial mistake of not reinvesting my profits into my business. Don't do that! Reinvest everything you make at first, just be wise about what you invest in because as leader found out (and I've done it too, don't worry you can recover from it) reinvesting in the wrong thing can be very costly. By far the biggest mistake I've ever made, and that, unfortunately, I continue to make to this day, is jumping from project to project without really finishing any of them. Like you, duler700, I get excited about ideas at first and then lose interest either when I don't see an immediate profit (working on the internet has made me VERY impatient), or when I think of some other great idea to pursue (it's also given me an extreme case of ADD). This mistake has almost been deadly to me and if I don't fix it soon then I'm going to have to get a "real" job to support myself instead of working online doing what I love. One last thing. Always keep learning and developing your skills. You can make a lot of money on the Internet if you have the right skills. I never finished high school and some days I was making over $100 per hour. But then I got lazy and stopped learning new things, so now I feel like I'm way behind everyone and I'm just trying to catch up. Currently I'm back to the basics, getting reacquainted with Photoshop and learning how to build a site using CSS rather than HTML. I thought of something else too. Don't build a website with the goal of making money from it. Build a website around a topic/niche that you love and then monetize it later after you've built up some traffic. I think Runescape would be a good niche for you to start with and after seeing your site and blog, I'd be interested in working with you on a project related to it. I think we'd be able to keep each other focused, so PM me if you wanna discuss it.
Hey leader, My suggestion for you is to sell ad space on the top of your site in place of your featured game. You could sell just one ad and charge more for it, or several small ads/links and charge less for each of them. Sell your space by the month, 3 month, or year even instead of for life because most people aren't going to trust that your site will be around that long. You could also try out some affiliate offers there until you can find advertisers. Also, you should put some more Adsense units on the site. If it were my site, I'd add a link unit under the blue bar at the top. I'd also take out the Crash image and change that square ad unit to a banner if it will fit, or a half banner and make the link color red like the random game links. Also under "advertisement" on the left side, put a link to your advertise page and give people the option to buy adspace there. Also put another google ad unit under it and one on the right side as well. A square would fit well on the right with a wide skyscraper or small square on the left. The main problem I see is that your advertise page is confusing and needs some work. You need to tell us how much traffic your site gets, where it comes from, and any other helpful info an advertiser might need to know. That page is your money maker so make it look good and give people a reason to buy ad space from you.
Well, there's one thing I regretted not doing, learning PHP and mySQL. That's where the money is at. You will see, all of the Web 2.0 startups are custom coded fitted for the visitor. Blogs and forums are run of the mill. IF you want to make a website and sell it for a few hundred k's, create a new concept. I dunno, AJAX calorie counter. One of the reasons I'm saying this is because updating websites is annoying. I'm not a content making person, only an app making person. Or, you could go this route: Make tons of blogs with content, and start investing the money you make into different projects where you see potential. I guess you could potentially make some money with content. There was a girl who sold her site for a lot of money about Myspace layouts, but honestly, I think she was a total noob. It's probably cause her site had that girly appeal. Now to speak of it, I remember I went to this website called Lissaexplainsitall to learn HTML. I'm sure she's doing well. That site is so noob, too. I can't believe I went to such noob websites. Maybe I just talked myself out of thinking Web 2.0 apps is where it's at. I would love to go back in time 5 years (keeping all of my current knowledge of course), and I swear, I would make so much freaking money before college. I would be spewing out bills at all the females.
You can build niche blogs, forums, and even just basic static sites and sell them here on DP all day long. Not for a hundred k's unless you build up some nice traffic also, but if you can build enough small niche sites you can make some good money. Copy other successful sites and do what works rather than searching for something original. Nothing is original anymore, it's all been done.
Cool thanks Droopy I'd be very interested. Not for the money, but to get some experience. So yes, I'll give ya a PM! To everyone, thanks for the comments! I decided I'm going to start a YouTube channel or MySpace page and show my talent of piano on it.
I'm 34 and this thread makes me feel ancient! I only wish the Internet had existed when I was a teenager. I was making money by cleaning cars back then
Alot of young people here wow same here age 14 got alot of advice from the people here even though i think the rules are a bit strict. so far made 4.35$ from my services. So thanks everyone first buck i made in my life
depends on what you're doing. If you're idea isn't unique, then you'll have an upwards battle to fight. Video is heavily saturated, and to be honest it's going to be very very difficult if you intend on doing something that's already done before. You're age is one of the biggest hurdles, no one (myself included) takes your age bracket seriously. You're age group is more of liability because there's all sorts of rules when dealing with minors. I think Google Adsense requires a minimum of age of 16 or 18 (maybe I'm wrong on that can't remember). Either way I think you need to have a more fledged out idea because what you've listed seems to already be done, although not for Runescape but for other MMOs.
Once again, nothing is unique and everything has been done before. Do what you love and don't worry so much about saturation and competition if you want to be successful. And don't look at your age as a big hurdle because it's not at all. In fact, it's a definite advantage. While most teens are spending all their time playing video games and watching tv, you're here learning how to make money and how to build a business. You're so far ahead of your peers it's not even funny and I can tell you from experience it will pay off if you keep working at it.
Once again, thanks for the tips! Dern I already have 56 replies, and almost 1,000 views just from this thread! I bet I could advertise my websites on this thread, when I make them a course!
You already have a blog you can advertise. Add it to your sig and that will bring you a little bit of traffic. Go to User CP and then edit signature and add a link to that and to your Clumsy Ninja site. Also try to get in the habit of updating your blog on a regular basis. You don't have to post daily, but if you go for too long without updating it you'll start losing your readers. Plus you're an entertaining writer and I wanna read more from you. You should move your blog away from wordpress.com though. You don't have enough control over it there. Try blogger.com or even better setup wordpress on your domain name in a folder like clumsyninja.net/blog You also might want to add analytics to your blog from http://getclicky.com/32104 or http://statcounter.com so you can keep track of where your traffic is coming from. Get a feedburner account at http://feedburner.com to keep up with your subscribers. You can also put adsense on it to start making a little bit of money from your efforts. It won't be much, but it's still pretty cool to make money from something you would do anyway. Ask your parents to help you get an account. But remember that this is a business and once you start making enough money you're going to have to pay taxes on whatever you make. You don't really need to worry about that right now, but eventually you will so just keep it in mind. It's possible to make a nice income just from blogging. John Chow made $40,000 from his blog in June! Here's his income report. Also look at Carl Ocab's blog for some inspiration. He started his blog when he was 13 and I think he's doing pretty well now. Read this post for some more blogging tips.