Too lazy to sell anything here... so I just say this stuff. intro & some background Some points: I've been doing all sorts of crap part-time (ranging from video games to uni to dayjob to whatnot)... and learning and doing stuff on my own. I'm not gonna tell exact numbers of how much dollars I get but I can say that it's a 5 fig number (here's short partial video 'proof' (although I don't care a rat's ass whether people believe me or not ) - I might take this video away for some reason if I want - but for now I let it stay there...) And one more thing: the stuff I say here is like "general", and applies to "building & marketing your business" in general. not just "gaming studio" business stuff here. thing #1 - doing stuff part time: focus when you do stuff part-time, it means that one of your most precious assets runs low (=time). Since you don't have much time, you gotta prioritize and do the fun stuff that works. For me... it means that I check out what sort of results I get when I do thing A compared to thing B and thing C. I compare this internally with "fun" & "profit" aspect. For example, if: A - brings money, not fun (=job, skip this) B - fun (=timewaster, but fun one - if it's fun then consider continuing if there's nothing else to do) C - brings money, fun (=excellent! do more this) So... I simply choose to do more C (but not A, if it's same as selling hamburgers) #2 - have vision/goal... something I think it's a must thing to have some sort of goal. I think the goal needs to be attainable... something that you can think of reaching (one lessons by the way is to learn to think much bigger). For example... if you think you can earn $1000 in a year, but think $10000 is totally impossible, then try aim for $2000 or something. But... be careful when setting a goal. If you stick too low, you end up staying there. (I think this is the one where I have much to learn) #3 - think of having a 10 year goal most people say how you can get rich and earn tons of money and whatnot if you just buy their stuff and don't do any work. If that would really work... then we all would be rich, right? Instead.... set a 10 year goal. If you think earning $100 per day is difficult now then can you think of earning $100 per day after 10 years? #4 - decline bad deals I remember once when I was really thrilled to earn ten bucks online (well, in reality I don't remember - I just make this part now to say the truth), but just couple of minutes ago I turned away $300 deal simply because it wasn't a good one. 300 bucks brings a neat amount of dog food but I skipped the deal since it was a bad one. sometimes short-term must be sacrificed for the long term stuff. #5 - forget investors well... not always. but sometimes this can be good. I think it like this: if you have good stuff, then start selling it or make it work. If it's so good, why take investors? If it's bad, then investors won't be interested. Why use them? just work on your own stuff (okay, I admit that real businesspeople who actually know how this stuff works can prove me wrong, but at least I think this tip #5 gives some perspective on doing things) #6 - this is how you can do master deals (and the best price) this is the 'secret' I'm using for negotiating prices. many people think that they need to come up with an offer on "how much it costs to do things A, B or C"... when in reality I always ask: ASK: "what's your budget?" <-- here'll be an important thing to remember Because I know that for example "creating a company website" can take anything from 100 bucks to 100 000 bucks and more. It just depends what the company wants. If somebody says he wants to "clone Digg.com" then I can say what kind of budget he has, and then estimate what he gets for that price. It's not meant to rip people. No, in the contrary. It simply means that I get a good picture (1) if this client is profitable or not, (2) I can better estimate what sort of proposal I should do. #7 - trust is the key thing trust is the way to sell anything. landing pages don't matter. your mailing list size doesn't matter. all what matters is that whether people trust you or not. I think creating a mailing list essential to almost any website that sells anything. Having four zillion visitors does no good if they are first time visitors - having mailing list makes many of those four zillion visitors come back not only once but twice or more... and thats like zizillion more visitors. #8 - do your best to help other people out when I just want to sell my crap it shows. but when I genuinely try to help the customer (and even say that "no, I don't think you should buy my stuff in this situation of yours right now" and don't make a sale) I'm going forward. The key idea is to help out people. And those people will at some point buy your good stuff.
Great post man! I definitely have to give it to you. I can definitely tell that you have the right mindset and that is one of the most important things to actually being successful! Most people don't understand this and always seem to forget but this truly key! Again thanks for sharing