I want so share this as encouragement for anyone considering launching something. Your idea doesn't have to be nearly as good as you think to produce results.
I wear many hats, and one of them is a high end tutor. 14 months ago I discovered an untapped local niche of athletes who needed to take a particular test to get into US schools.
I made a website titled "cityname-testname.com", and spend a day making 17 posts that summarized my knowledge of the test. I advertised a tutoring package that amounted to $100 an hour.
Over the past 14 months that crappy, 17 page site resulted in $7,000 of revenue. It could have been more, but that business is not my focus and I put zero effort into it after making the site.
Make a useful site, and people will find it. And if you have something good to sell, some people will buy.
By the way, total monthly traffic to that site is 60-80 people. That's all you need, if they're the right people.
I'm kind of going the same route, filling the gaps that other people skip over because they're chasing the big dream. I'm just hoping to make enough income so I can work on my own projects full-time, and have the flexibility of self-employment.
No, that looks interesting, especially with the ratings. A few years ago I remember reading various blogs and having it drilled into my head that there's a lot of money to be made with niche websites.
Is there any interest in creating a subreddit for people who're interested in doing their own "game/website/app every day/week/month"? Just a place to chat about what they're doing, encourage and inspire each other, etc.
It's inspiring to read about projects like these. Related:
Yes, I second this. We need a subreddit or community where we can share, inspire and help others with things like these.
Personally, I've tried a similar experiment, but failed miserably; I had no motivation, inspiration, guidance etc. I'd love to be driven by such posts and succeed...
I just created this subreddit http://www.reddit.com/r/12for12/. I'm not attached to the name at all if you want to do something different, but thought it'd be good to get a start as there appears to be interest.
I have a similar goal this year of releasing a product each month so am happy to moderate.
Nice, I sub'd it. You should post your projects there or on a blog! I can tell you already I feel more drive towards getting these done and sticking to it for 12 months.
Yeah I also saw that post by Jennifer Dewalt, it was kind of what inspired this idea (but I'm not as ambitious!).
I'm hoping writing about the projects will help motivate me and hold me accountable a little bit. Let me know if you start such a group, I'd obviously like to participate.
Sounds interesting. But please disable debugging on the live version of your projects or put at least a http basic auth in front of it. Debugging messages are not meant to be seen by everybody - http://babynames.cc/
Thanks vanmount, I will do that. I set that up on my host awhile ago. I'm doing everything locally, but I will get it fixed until I deploy the production site.
I want so share this as encouragement for anyone considering launching something. Your idea doesn't have to be nearly as good as you think to produce results.
I wear many hats, and one of them is a high end tutor. 14 months ago I discovered an untapped local niche of athletes who needed to take a particular test to get into US schools.
I made a website titled "cityname-testname.com", and spend a day making 17 posts that summarized my knowledge of the test. I advertised a tutoring package that amounted to $100 an hour.
Over the past 14 months that crappy, 17 page site resulted in $7,000 of revenue. It could have been more, but that business is not my focus and I put zero effort into it after making the site.
Make a useful site, and people will find it. And if you have something good to sell, some people will buy.
By the way, total monthly traffic to that site is 60-80 people. That's all you need, if they're the right people.