My Plans on Achieving Web Success

February 2, 2008

Back Story

For the last 4 years I have been consistently working out of school and Uni to earn some money to help accommodate my life expenses and also to buy video games (the two factors could almost be considered as one). This started off with pamphlet delivery for real estate companies back when I was about 14/15. I did this for about two years with my brother before I got my first retail position at 17. Over the past 2 years I have been selling electrical goods as part of my job and I am very passionate about doing so.

Unfortunately it looks like my retail work is coming to an end. Since November my work hours have been slashed and for the past 2 months I have had no hours at work. This doesn’t surprise me because this has occurred with almost all of the staff working at my store in my position. What do I mean by ‘my position’? Well back in July the store that I was working for was bought out (just the store, not the company) by another retailer and a few months after the transition took place, many younger staff started seeing their hours reduced to zero.It was strange talking to people about this because as people were getting their hours cut to nothing, I was still plodding along quite nicely. Infact I managed to survive longer that almost all of the other staff ‘in my position’ (which I am very surprised at).

Anyways, since my hours were cut basically right after all of the other Christmas retail job were closing it meant that I missed out on grabbing a new job over the Christmas break (and quite possibly into the next year). As I didn’t know that I would continue not being supplied with hours for the next 2 months, I just assumed that they didn’t need me for the 2 weeks or so and that I’d be back in the swing of things for Christmas. Which didn’t happen. Oh BTW I had to stay on until December anyway to sort out a pay dispute.

So, here I am without a job. Well officially I still work at the place but I just don’t get supplied with any hours. My folks want me to find a new job and then I can quit the current one as judging by the trend, my hours more than likely won’t pick up.

But heres the thing I don’t want to go out and find a new job. I was very comfortable where I was, before this new company came in and changed things. Damn change, I hate it! I realized that if I go back into electrical retail then it won’t be the same. You see, I am soft. When a customer comes in and sees me, ultimately I want the best thing for them, even if it means putting their interests above the store’s. I am all for my customers and pride myself on this very fact. Unfortunately, no electronics retailer wants a softy like me, they want sharks that will convince any idiot to spend cash even if they don’t need to. I hate this, I hate pushy salesman, they are just pricks and only are your friend once you have fed their gaping commission hole. So basically I am not the man for competitive selling which might be why my hours got cut (although I actually did make a lot of big sales).

My conclusion is therefore stacking shelves or crunching sales on a register. I could try and find a more specialized job suited towards my interests but the chances of me finding a suitable job and then landing it are slim.

Now, theres nothing wrong with stacking shelves or crunching sales on a register. Its practically a mix of my past 2 years of retail (mixed in with some customer service). But just for some reason I really don’t want to go back there. For the past 2 years I have always been the least experienced person in my team, it took me a year and a half just to learn the ropes at my first retail job (which was very very stressful because I was basically dumped into my position and had to survive by myself, in the deepend). And I don’t want to go back to being a rookie in the deepend.

On second thought, I want to stress the importance of the last paragraph. I can’t help but think that the underlying reason comes from the struggle that I’ve experienced starting out in retail. It was scary, thrown in the deep end, with no experience and a flood of angry (no joke) customers. In a way I feel that it has traumatized me into not wanting to return to such a position of employment. Hah ^_^

Anyways I should probably get to…

What You Thought this Entry was About

BTW before I go on I should note that over the Christmas break I have been very busy working on danielprimed.com as well as my Chinese language (been doing more tutoring with friends). So don’t mistake me for a lazy bum who doesn’t want to get a job.

So, suffice to say I have been pondering over what to do about work. After some thought I came to the conclusion that it might be worth a serious shot at trying to make some money online. For years I have been thinking about doing this but I myself have never really taken any serious action.

I feel confident that this is the path for me and that the time is now. Over the past few months I have spent a considerable amount of my spare time researching into web development, management and marketing. With all of this I have realized what I need to do in order to succeed and with danielprimed.com I have already started experiencing this first hand. I also have the resources available; I have plenty of design experience, plenty of web space and a brother that is willing to help with the coding and technical parts of web development. I have all the tools for the job.

So with all of this in mind, I started thinking websites. Basically there are two possibilities of new websites that I an make:

A Common Site

Basically these sites have an over saturated market and there is already plenty of other sites filling demand.

Advantages

easy to think up of the concept (because its pre-existing)
more of a safe bet

Disadvantages

takes a lot of work to get noticed
you need quality content put on consistently on a regular basis

A Niche Site

Niche sites on the other hand are sites where the competition is low to non existent.

Advantages

you can easily become THE authority for everything regarding your niche
niche sites are generally more respected
if you find the niche that “people want but don’t know about yet” then you have a lot of potential for success

Disadvantages

niche might(and probably does) have a smaller market
you have to find a niche with a large enough market to be successful

There are also sites that are a mixture of the two. Like video game blogs. ^_^

Basically straight away I decided to go for the niche site because I couldn’t think of any content that I could constantly provide at a high level of quality. So, I spent even more time thinking about an appropriate niche. I wanted to think of a site that “people want but don’t know that they want it yet”.

Anyways, I am pleased to say that after a lot of investigating I found two niches that would make ideal sites and I am definite that there is a more than solid market for the two niches. One of them I plan on working on myself an the other I will be collaborating with my brother.

The first project I want to have up within 2 months. Although it is likely to take a few weeks longer. I have done plenty of research and I can’t find a single website dedicated to this niche. So it will be easy to become the authority site. I also think that there is quite a large market for the site as well. The site’s keywords are in the domain name and it will be very easy to managed with SEO. So there are plenty of positives for this new site.

The second site also will be the authority site for its niche. There are a few other sites in this niche but none in the particular region I am aiming at or with the variety of content that I want to provide. This site will take a lot of work and can easily be marketed off line. I’m not sure when this site will be released. Second half of the year I guess.

So there are my ideas. I feel as though the time is now for me to act. I have the tools, skills and experience necessary for the job. And its something that I have always wanted to try. Although I obviously want to make enough money from these sites to substitute my previous job, I don’t want to become greedy with monetizing my websites. Thats not the plan. Much like my customers at work; I want to provide a quality service to my viewers. But I still want to earn some money in the process.

I’m not going to announce any further details about these websites until they launch. I just wanted to get these ideas off my chest. I have checked all of the legal ramification and am all good to go. So I’ll just be working on these sites from now to release.

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Tags: Life
Posted in Life |

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2 Comments »

Comment by racketboy — February 4, 2008 at 8:03 pm

Sorry to hear about the job situation, but I’m excited to see what you have planned for your online ventures.

I started my site when I quit my job to go to school full-time. But just fair warning, in most cases, it takes a while to build up steam. Make sure you’re publishing stuff that you are passionate about. if you’re not having fun, you will probably get tired of it and it will be easy to give up.

On the subject of giving up or not giving up, I would recommend this book:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/
It’s short, but sweet.

Seth Godin’s other books are strongly recommended as well.

I wish you the best of luck!
Send me an email if you need any further advice or have questions!