You just got an idea! At first, you think it is one of the greatest ideas that has ever crossed your mind.
Upon further reflection for a day or two, you realize that it is not one of your better ideas, in fact, it’s not that great of an idea at all.
So, what do you do? Do you just ditch the idea? Do you pursue it?
Basically, what you need to do is to do an analysis of how much time you will spend developing the idea, and how much money you think the idea will earn for you. You need to balance those two things and determine if it is worthwhile to follow the idea and develop it.
Let’s look at some examples.
I have had some ideas that have made me a fairly significant amount of money. I had one idea about 10 years ago for a website. The website required about 3 months of full-time work (probably more than that, as I often worked up to 16 hours per day) to develop the site. For the first year or so, the site made me close to nothing. Of course, it took time to develop the site, promote the site, and iron our my business systems to make the site operate smoothly for my customers. Was it worth it for me to spend several months on the site? Well, if I based the answer on only the first year’s results, clearly it was not worth my time. However, since then, that site has made me a lot of money, enough for a full-time income, an upper-middle-class full-time income. So, what do you think now? Was it worth 3 months work in setting it up? I think it was. In fact, in the past 10 years, I have had to put more work into running and maintaining the site, but not that much work, to be honest. So, I consider that a good investment.
I have a second example that I want to present. I have another site that took me about 2 hours to put together, frankly, nothing at all in the big picture. I set this site up about 4 years ago, as I recall. I have put no further work into the site since I set it up. I have a total of 2 hours work into the site. I don’t have to write any articles or anything for the site, just leave it as it is, and from time to time I make money from the site. I would say that for the past 3 months, I have probably made nothing from the site, until this past weekend. But, this past weekend, I made $750 in pure profit from the site. On average, in a year, I probably earn $5,000 or so from this site. It costs me probably $20 per year in hosting costs and domain registration for the site, and that 2 hours that I spent a few years back. What about this site, is it worth my time and effort? Well, as I said, usually it brings in nothing, but from time to time it spurts and gives me a healthy sum of money. Is that worth it? I think it is. $5,000 per year is not that much, in terms of lifestyle, but it is still a nice little injection of cash.
Of course, I have other sites that earn little, even nothing. But, who knows, maybe someday those sites will also start producing income too. Either way, I am still happy to have the sites, and whatever income they product I am happy for.
The thing is, I have long been an advocate of earning small streams of money. Don’t just go for that one website that earns you $100k per year. If you can build up a site of that caliber, sure, do it! But, produce many different sites of different earning levels. For example, I have probably 20 different sites that earn respectable revenue. If one of those sites goes down and earns nothing tomorrow, well, it’s not that big of a deal, because I have 19 other sites which are still doing well. That is the beauty of having multiple streams of income. Even if one stream dries up, the other streams keep flowing and contributing to your river of earnings.
So, to answer the question in the title of this article… for me, an idea does not have to produce huge amounts of earnings for the project to be a success. But, you do have to balance how much time and money you will need to invest in the idea compared to how much you expect the project to earn for you. It all comes down to that.
Hey Bob, as always good post. I’ve had my first pc back in 98 and 3 years after, I kinda have this vsion of wanting to have an online buisness.. it’s always just an idea. Just never pushed through though. Wasn’t able to analyze and concentrate (Mama had cancer). So after ’03, I really wanted to have like e card type of biz ( something like Blue Mountain Arts on a small small scale). Was just a thougtht. Didn’t pursue..
I agree just having small streams of income producing sites.. but I guess I’ll need to have time and money and knowledge invested to ideas.. I can have the time but I lack the other. I don’t want to be a slave monkey forevever.. he he.
One more if it’s ok..How much does one need to spend for online business. Maybe good pc and connectivoty? something I lack as well. Sorry long comment.. Thanks Bob.
Hi sugar – I am a firm believer in the theory of having multiple streams of income, small ones or whatever. Of course, it’s always nice to have a river or two, if you can.
I never have been a fan of Blue Mountain Arts, but if that is your passion, why not go for it?
When you are getting established, you have to spend a lot of time on your businesses, really full time if possible. After you get yourself established, you will be able to cut back on your personal commitment, though.
Sugar,
If you are thinking of blogging for money. Time is amongst other things are your keys. Setting up a website is the easiest part (after you get through the hurdle of selecting your domain name that is appropriate to what it is you’r e going to do) . You can even start of using a free based domain—I know one or two successfull bloggers who uses free domains. But the bulk of recommendations out there is to have your own domain because you have full control over it.
Domain hosting/registration— would probably set you back about $100 per year, give or take. You need a decent enough machine to use to write on and for online but it doesn’t have to be an extremely fast computer (I used to use them all the time but that’s because I was still working in the multimedia industry). But I am not in the field now so I use whatever computer I get for the price of about AUD$1,500.00.
Internet Connection—I don’t know where you live. But I say you need something decent as well for your researching tools such as video feeds, and since this is online work that you would like to embark on you would need a connection that you can connect to everyday. Bob as 3 connection I beleive.
Oops. Sorry for the thread hi-jack
Yes, internet based money making I feel would require a little amount of money to start up and a heck-a-lot-a-time working on it to make it sucessfull—unless ofcourse you’re online image/name branding is secured already where I think you’d have a better chance.
Multiple Blogs—having multiple blogs though, I think may work or not for the author. The reason I write that is because if you have mutliple blogs, you have to work on all of them—that is if content is your key. The more blogs you have the more hours you have to put into them which I feel would reflect on the quality of your content. But then again, as we read this blog. It is not always the case.
Hi JC – Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree with some… and disagree with others.
Wow, $1,500 for a computer? You are richer than me, my friend. The computer that I am using right now cost me only about $200, although that does not include the monitors/keyboard/mouse. It’s just a Nettop, Intel Atom dual core processor. Works great, though.
You are right, I have three different internet connections. My primary connection is Globe Broadband DLS, a 3Mbps connection. My secondary connection is SmartBro, and finally I have a Globe Tattoo.
I don’t recommend having multiple sites until you have already become well established and known on the net. Spend your time and effort on a single site until you have built up your presence.
Bob, thanks for the advise. I saw JC”s comment… he he.. not blogging for money.. he thought I was he he.. Anyway, my pc is about 14k pesos. .I plan to replace it though when I have enough saving ( sameor less price). My choice is desktop. Since you’re knowledgeable with ‘puters, got recommendations? lots of thanks 🙂
Hi Sugar – I don’t really have a recommendation. I usually build my own PC, and don’t really go for the “branded” stuff.
Hi, Bob. Thought mine machine was cheap as it is—decent enough to last 2-3 years before getting another one. Normally I would be buying twice as much for a laptop because I need it to function in a certain way—think of video editing, photoshop and firewire etc.. But since I don’t work in the IT field professionally anymore….. I use the “average” laptop with a bit of a decent zing.
Likewise, I don’t recommend multiple blogsites—or sites geared up for making money online but different reasons to you though. Even though I have multiple websites myself—none of them are really geared up for making money online—except one, which is still in it’s early stages—heck I”m stuggling what kind of content I need to put in there as it crosses both personal and business site. But that said, it is clear I don’t have a clear vision of what I want to do with the website so to date it remains as a hobby type site.
Bob, small question though, you mentioned you like having small streams of incomes across various website. How long would that take though for somebody who just started or is thinking of starting and who is not established or known?
Hi JC – I do recommend multiple sites… just not at first. Take time to really do a quality job on a site, build yourself up, and that will open up avenues so that you can do multiple sites.
How long will it take to become established and known on the net? I would say probably 3 years of hard work minimum. But, although time is part of the equation, it matters a lot what you do during that time. You can’t just sit around and do nothing and expect to be well known in a few years. 😉
When getting your own PC, I recommend that you for setup using different branded parts unlike buying a ready-made one. It is especially cheaper than buying a $500 PC but does not contain quality parts.
I heartily agree with you, Noromor!