How did you get started with your internet business?

Discussion in 'General Business' started by dturnbull, Feb 5, 2008.

  1. #1
    I love these kind of stories, so how did you get started with your internet business?

    My first experience with making a web page was when I was about 11. I was home "sick" from school and was on my dads laptop. I was writing a fiction book at the time (got to 5000 words and got bored). Anyways, I went to the "File" menu and noticed I could "Save as Web Page". I was dismayed when this didn't launch the page directly online, but it got me interested in the concept.

    A few months later students from the high school I currently attend came to our primary school and offered to teach students HTML for the heck of it. I missed out on a few lunches and began learning. I was the only one who really picked it up, and then just started messing around with free web hosts, and basic HTML.

    After a while of messing around with hosts like freewebs, angelfire etc, I found $10 in the gutter after going to the beach, and bought my first domain name: dcmgames.com - I don't own it anymore, but it was a site where I attempted to release games I made with "The Games Factory". It didn't last too long, and my games were always terribly bug-ridden when I would export them, but it was still good fun.

    From there I just kept making sites about video games, until I had my first real success by making a Nintendo DS site (dsaccess.com) and selling it for $260. I was I think 14 or 15 at the time. I was stoked, and now I'm 17 and still going strong. :)
     
    dturnbull, Feb 5, 2008 IP
  2. Game Producer

    Game Producer Well-Known Member

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    #2
    Heh, nice story. Well... for me.... I just kept doing what I had passion and went online. :)

    Remember reserving my old domain like... 6 years ago (still own it ;)) from where I kept going and doing stuff.
     
    Game Producer, Feb 5, 2008 IP
  3. w3bmaster

    w3bmaster Notable Member

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    #3
    Well i never been a noob pc user i have from where to learn tricks my dad is a programer (old school basic fox pro)
    Olso i had some friends by the time i was 16 and got internet i started hacking losed like 3 years on this :) at 19 when i got to colege i realised i need money started more seriously freelancing building websites

    Now at 24 i make double easily then my parents and live from online ventures with my own car and in future my own house :)
     
    w3bmaster, Feb 6, 2008 IP
  4. HuggyStudios

    HuggyStudios Well-Known Member

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    #4
    I was playing online gaming and needed a clan site, and now look :)
     
    HuggyStudios, Feb 6, 2008 IP
  5. The Emirates Gallastico

    The Emirates Gallastico Banned

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    #5
    I started in the summer - looking to (eventually) become a football journalist (and get paid for writing) so started a Blogspot block (which is now PR3, but not used :D) with articles. Made $0.5 in my first month with Adsense and around $30 writing articles at $2/500 words (horrific days :eek: ) and eventually moved on to domain flipping - my first one was HipHopUpdates.com, which I bought at reg fee and sold for $60... went a bit mad after that and regged around 100~ more in the next couple months, but ah well.
     
  6. SticKer

    SticKer Well-Known Member

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    #6
    i started off playing with frontpage then signed up for some free hosting and there it all began.. i learnt html, learnt to install scripts and so on.
     
    SticKer, Feb 6, 2008 IP
  7. flaco

    flaco Peon

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    #7
    Let's see my story. When I was GUESS MY AGE I started on PayPerPost doing paid blog posts, I made over $2,000 last year! This year I started affiliate marketing got my first deposit coming for $409.30 for a week and on track to beat that for February! :D
     
    flaco, Feb 6, 2008 IP
  8. jordanthegreat

    jordanthegreat Active Member

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    #8
    I discovered forums for the first time when I was like 17 and loved the idea so much that I went and set up my own on a free proboards account. It was a paintball forum. I spammed a few other bigger paintball forums to get the word out and started getting members, assigning moderators and became addicted to my site. Eventually a moderator told me about phpBB so I looked in to it, bought some hosting and a domain and moved my boards there. Continued to grow and eventually when I learned about google adsense I signed up, threw some ads on the site and started making money. I am 21 now and sold my paintball forum last year for $500 (yea it never got THAT big). I miss not owning the forum anymore but now I am trying to focus on some new, more promising ideas.
     
    jordanthegreat, Feb 6, 2008 IP
  9. Barefootsies

    Barefootsies Well-Known Member

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    #9
    Nice story chief
     
    Barefootsies, Feb 6, 2008 IP
  10. mindiam1

    mindiam1 Well-Known Member

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    #10
    My Story is kind of the same.

    I was first interested in websites when i got my first computer, this was when i was around 14. Being the little deviet i was i decided i would make a website where i would try and sell the cd's i burned on the internet.

    I made my first website on tripods site builder. All of my images were massive and over 1mb each. I remember it took my webpage hours to load up on my slow dial up computer.

    After this I gave up and started playing runescape, back in the good old days where the best shield you could buy was a adamine kite shield made by that bluesmith rose chick, who was the best in those days.

    By this time i was around 15 years old and i made a clan website which i think is still up at http://shaolin360.tripod.com

    I played runescape and built up a clan and thus my website. We got really popular in runscape. After we found a bug where you could equip a knife and kill people in 2 hits, half my clan got deleted and we kind of gave up.

    After this I moved onto half life death match, so I decided to make a website, I bought my first real domain name, and found free hosting from a friend! I was around 17 at this time.

    I decided to make a downloads information site through joomla, after around 6 months my site got really successfull, so I needed to find more content. I eventually forgot about the site.

    I then made my own portfolio website and made a few sites for people for free to build up a rep and something to show.

    It is around 6 years later and I have learnt alot, I currently now have a successfull web design company with a steady list of clients, and I have a few hobby website which bring in some good dosh every week.
     
    mindiam1, Feb 7, 2008 IP
  11. jhn2001

    jhn2001 Well-Known Member

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    #11
    I started with hacking nd stuff never made a penny there ..infact i got hacked plenty of times lol , then studied about HYIP ,then forex . I basically lost everywhere .
    then my friend gave me an yahoo multibot chatroom spammer and introduced me to adsense .
    i kept on spamming my my website links allover the chat room made some money .Then yahoo introduced captcha ....my bot became useless , and i landed up in this forum and started to make few sites and learned a lot from warez forums :D
    Lets see where does my future takes me .........
    i need to choose an online career or an simple boring offline career i got just 4 months in my hands :D
     
    jhn2001, Feb 7, 2008 IP
  12. TheVccMatey

    TheVccMatey Peon

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    #12
    My first site was a blogspot page 2 years back. Left it and came back last year and made a blog and I've been with it ever since. :D
     
    TheVccMatey, Feb 7, 2008 IP
  13. tjhooker_slo

    tjhooker_slo Peon

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    #13
    My software startup product needed a way to display images in an HTML report without using actual images, so I came up with a way to do that, which works great. Then I realized the technique would also apply to HTML e-mails, allowing the images in e-mails to bypass the image blocking filter on all e-mail clients. Tada! Another company! Now I am trying to decide if I want to build a clean opt-in bulker service to send these image based e-mails, or if I want to join a questionable affiliate program, grab some BP hosting and bulk send some leads...
     
    tjhooker_slo, Feb 7, 2008 IP
  14. Proximity

    Proximity Banned

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    #14
    Well i was in need of money, and started something up :)
     
    Proximity, Feb 7, 2008 IP
  15. immortality

    immortality Peon

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    #15
    I started off with a geocities site. I learned enough HTML to make a site in about 3 days when I was 12. I made a bit of sites and then made a tutorial site on geocities. I signed up at namepros when it had only about 200 members and posted a bit and bought a domain with my NP$. It was for a personal blog. I then got around 3 or 4 more domains. At this point in time I did not know you could monetize a site so I made no money. I then became a nerd gamer playing D2 for about a year and a half. I came back and started a bunch of proxies and earned thousands from them. I sold my best one for $2.5k and then started the current business I have right now which I just got earning over $5k a month.
     
    immortality, Feb 7, 2008 IP
  16. angilina

    angilina Notable Member

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    #16
    I first started working at freelance sites. there I saw people making money via websites, so I decided to give it a try and it worked :)

    at the moment, I have 2 sites, will make more soon
     
    angilina, Feb 9, 2008 IP
  17. greenline

    greenline Banned

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    #17
    I think i was around 11. I was interested in how i could make a website, so i searched google, found some basic HTML tutorials, and simply started. I made some really ugly websites in the start :p. I think the first forum i regged at was clantemplates. The first template i sold gave me $20. Enough to 2 domains. I registered on namecheap, and bought 2 domains, imagehosted.net and gamingtalkonline.com. I sold both domains for $20. I liked the domain branche, so i bought more domains, and kept selling them. Some time after, i got interested in websites, and i've tried to build some up. Now im here. The best sale so far is a website, for $70. I hope i can make that bigger in this year ;)
     
    greenline, Feb 9, 2008 IP
  18. Seomotion

    Seomotion Active Member

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    #18
    2 years ago I was in car accident. We crashed into a house at 140 km per hour. I was in hospital for two months, after it i had to walk on crutches. At this time i loved one girl - it is long and sad story (we lived in different countries and loved each other for 2 years). Her parents decided to send her to study in Stellenboch university in South Africa. I understood, that it means that we will not be together at least for 4 years. It was terrible. And i decided to try making money in the internet, because i can't find offline work (because i walked on crutches).

    I began to use clicks and CAP programms. Wow, i was so stupid. Then i tryied HYIPS - so, without any result.
    Then i began learning html. Then recieved my first order for website development. I understood, that freelance - it is real way to make money. I was researching Search Engine optimization. Recieved a big authority in the sphere of SEO in our country. I earned 30,000 dollars, and my documents to Stlellenboch University were ready. But she felt in love with someone in South Africa. It was the end of our love story.

    After freelance i understood that real way - is - own projects.
    So, now i have about 20 websites in different niches.
     
    Seomotion, Feb 9, 2008 IP
  19. Game Producer

    Game Producer Well-Known Member

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    #19
    Heh, nice stories everybody.

    One thing I remembered from the past was when I tried some image ads on my site, and earned like.... 2 cents in three days or something. I was thinking like... "heck, this stuff isn't working..." and continued "...but perhaps if I'd try something else".

    From that point, things HAVE gone better and the pace speed is getting faster ;)
     
    Game Producer, Feb 10, 2008 IP
  20. argothiusz

    argothiusz Well-Known Member

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    #20
    Let's see. It's all begin at the summer of my junior year; so, no school work or anything and I have nothing to do. My friend always say that I am lazy and seriously need a job so I start to create a website and show them that I can make easily make money if I want to and earn more than 10$ per hour.

    6 months later, my website becomes a big success and I earn more than $1.3k a month. The site is basically self function and I probably do less than 12 hours of work a month. xD
     
    argothiusz, Feb 11, 2008 IP