This is a very exciting post for me because I have been talking about setting up a business for a very very long time. In fact I decided to share the process with the readers of this blog by tracking it with my 'Real Time Small Business Experiment'...and the results were definitely mixed.
Actually it was just over 2 years ago when I first wrote about my plans to start a business. I have gotten close several times but reality and life often got in the way of what I hoped would be successful businesses.
Writing a blog is something I know all about. I have been writing this blog for almost three years now and have written different blogs in the past. Through each of these blogs I have learned and developed my skills and I'm constantly learning new ways of communicating content, getting my work out there, accepting criticism and building a resource that people find useful.
I decided to start a new blog which focuses on one of the areas I currently write about on this blog. I will be hiving that off into a separate blog to give it a greater degree of attention and focus. This blog covers a great number of topics and is not focussed on one particular audience. Hopefully splitting out the material will give both blogs a great degree of focus.
Don't worry though - this blog isn't going anywhere. I am just going to be focussing it more on personal finance topics. If you would like the address of my new blog shoot me an email. It will be up and running in the next few weeks.
Actually it was just over 2 years ago when I first wrote about my plans to start a business. I have gotten close several times but reality and life often got in the way of what I hoped would be successful businesses.
Focusing on my strengths and where I added value was the best decision I made
It may sound strange but when I first started looking at business opportunities I was doing it all wrong. I was looking at gaps in the market and what businesses would work instead of what I was good at and where I had experiences.
This resulted in me going down a whole lot of rabbit holes and looking at businesses where other people could obviously do it better than me. It was a frustrating journey as great ideas eventually turned out to be non starters due to my own lack of experience and expertise. However once I decided to focus on my strengths the whole process became a lot easier. I (almost instinctively) knew where I could add value and where I was weak and this helped me structure my new business much more clearly.
The end result was a new blog that I'm very proud of
I decided to start a new blog which focuses on one of the areas I currently write about on this blog. I will be hiving that off into a separate blog to give it a greater degree of attention and focus. This blog covers a great number of topics and is not focussed on one particular audience. Hopefully splitting out the material will give both blogs a great degree of focus.
Don't worry though - this blog isn't going anywhere. I am just going to be focussing it more on personal finance topics. If you would like the address of my new blog shoot me an email. It will be up and running in the next few weeks.
A blog isn't really a business...is it?
I always used to think of my blog as a way of expressing my creative side...and never really as a business. However the more I thought about my new blog the more I realised that there were significant monetisation opportunities available for it.
The new blog will be a platform for a business I'm going to build around it (primarily informational based but I will also be providing fee based services as well). As with any informational businesses, establishing trust is the most important thing I am going for so I am not going to be monetising it too fast. In fact by the end of June 2015 I am hoping to be generating $100 / month in revenue which is not a lot at all...but it is after this that I hope the earnings from the blog will start to accelerate.
The new blog will be a platform for a business I'm going to build around it (primarily informational based but I will also be providing fee based services as well). As with any informational businesses, establishing trust is the most important thing I am going for so I am not going to be monetising it too fast. In fact by the end of June 2015 I am hoping to be generating $100 / month in revenue which is not a lot at all...but it is after this that I hope the earnings from the blog will start to accelerate.
I am going to give this blog a real go...and am hoping for the best
I am hoping for the best with this blog and will keep you updated on how I go. I have invested some serious time and effort into getting it running and I hope it eventually turns into something which can supplement my ordinary income in a meaningful way.
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Good luck on the blog man. great start and a lot of good info in here.
ReplyDeleteGood Day and Grind On!
Thanks mate! Appreciate the support.
DeleteAwesome news 90M, although I knew that this was coming :)..
ReplyDeleteWould love if you shared the link to your new blog/website with me (will email you separately) and looking forward to watching/helping you grow..
Why not set a steeper goal though, I'd say $100 a month is too easily attainable, why not make it $500, set some stretch goals.. It is better to miss a higher target than achieve a low target or expectation..
Cheers
Hi Jef,
DeleteHonestly the $100 / month goal is only a temporary target. Underlying that goal is a much larger target. Within a year I want to build the site to 50,000 page views per month and at $2 / 1,000 page views (approx) this gets to the $100.
After this point I am going to try to monetise the blog in other ways by offering different services (and that's where my stretch targets come into play)
The goals are there but I was a little gun shy about writing them up on this post
Wow that would be amazing to get 50,000 page views per month.. Looking forward to helping and watching us both grow..
DeleteAm sure your goals will be hit and maybe shared in due time :)
Congratulations on the new business! Really excited to hear a lot more about it.
ReplyDeleteHi Streetikonz! Thanks very much. I am just discovering the amount of 'final touches' that go in to starting a website. They are taking me far longer than I thought which is pushing back my launch date a little
DeleteWill definitely post about it in the coming months.