My First 2K

Articles for Traffic and Money

2009-09-20T19:23:00.010-04:00

Very easy process! Write some quality articles and submit them to well established article directories (see end). Usually you are allowed to include up to 2 links in the the resource box.

Not only will these links point back to your site/blog, bringing you a steady stream of traffic, they will also be crawled by the search engines. And every link pointed to your site/blog is counted as a vote for your site/blog. So the more votes you get, the higher your search rankings. That means you will get EVEN more organic traffic just by doing article marketing alone!

Many of these sites offer good profit sharing (though some only for residents of US) from revenue generated from ads on the page. If that's your calling, then remember that 3 articles per day make 90 articles per month and 1,080 articles each year. When you break it up into small goals it's HUGE revenue potential!

To get started try to think of topics people are searching for, find what the people need to know and write about that subject. That you can do through google trends for example! Your income will start off slow but at the end of that year you can be making upwards of $200 daily without too much trouble at all. It's also maintenance free so you can simply sit back and enjoy the cash.

It's pretty easy to write articles if you follow AIDA - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. So; first get a common place with audience, share your story, offer a problem that needs to be solved and then give one tip, and encourage action. A click or following a link to perhaps another one of your pages

You can always outsource the writing if you don't like to do it yourself. Use getafreelancer and Odesk. Many times you can find people willing to write articles for you for about ONE dollar!

Submit to:

They can also make you money from revenue sharing off of their ads!

Especially because they tend to rank pretty high in google.

- Back to My First 2k -

Squidoo Tips

2009-09-20T19:12:00.003-04:00

To get better lensrank, and get more traffic to your squidoo page, get ranked by other lensmasters. To do this, rank other lenses, and ask the lensmasters to do the same for you. Your lensrank should go up. There are a number of other factors, including how often you update your lens – so why not update your lens daily?

Squidoo also has web 2.0 bookmarking buttons that let you bookmark it via sites like Digg, Twitter, Myspace and Stumbleupon. Try bookmarking random or vaguely related lenses at Squidoo, and then leave a positive comment letting them know you like the lens and that you bookmarked it for them. Pick those lensmasters that have recent and/or regular logins; thus only choosing those that are active in the community. They will very often return the favour for your lenses.

- Back to My First 2K -

Make Money Buying and Reselling Websites

2009-09-20T18:58:00.004-04:00

More than just domain names, but rather full websites are sold on Sedo and eBay daily!

And on the other hand firms like WhyPark offer to build whole websites around your domain names. Complete with affiliate marketing links, and content that is constantly new! All they ask in return is a percentage of the advertising revenue generated.

Hence this strategy involves buying websites on sites such as eBay, refurbish them with new content, optimize them for search, and potentially reselling these sites in a few months for a higher price.

Some more details here: How to Flip Websites

- Back to My First 2K -

Competition Update 2

2009-09-20T15:32:00.001-04:00

My First 2K Update 2

$120 up, $45 invested

update includes:

first 4 domain names I purchased
troutbait.wordpress.com
iPhone App Development
Idea with Mark
new business product

As for the websites, no movement, NONE. But then again, I haven't really taken any time to improve or promote them. So the fact that no one has purchased them is of no surprise. There was a slight dissapointment, and that was when at sedo I applied all my domains for a premium domain status (process was simple: place in a category click 'apply') to participate in a better auction, but was denied. Anyway, eventually I will get to post it on eBay and try to relist it on sedo.

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troutbait.wordpress.com on the other hand is getting off the ground. I try my best to write information on it without plagiarizing it, but with little knowledge on the topic it is taking up a lot of research time. In retrospect the keyword payout is not the highest, but I am determined to not quit half way. I still need to monetize it, but adsense hasn't yet granted me permission, and it's been a week!

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I met with an iPhone App developer yesterday, and while he seems young and not as experienced as I want, I do not have the desire to look for someone better. I had him sign a CDA/NDA and am waiting to hear his final decision. I chose him because he IS young and willing to do this, and because the other applicants replied to my ad way over 1 month ago, but I only started getting back to people recently. Hence he was one of the most recent. I met with him, and I chose him.

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As for the student geared website I'm working together on with Mark Shpuntov it's going fantastic! We were very lucky to meet a phenomenal developer. A really experienced professional and an overall fun person. The first meeting was no where as difficult as we expected. It was really easy to find common ground, and we are happy to have him help us materialize our idea!

He was the second developer we sat down with, and one of many we communicated with back and forth. At the same time, we were strongly considering another individual who, in our request to relevant experience send us a site which already was very similar in design and almost concept to what we had in mind. But. The day we wanted to meet him, he was unavailable, and after meeting with the developer we have now, we knew we didn't even want to continue our search.

So you can tell probably that I'm pretty excited, and I will keep you guys updated on this too, as no doubt this will add to my first 2k.

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Funny thing happens when you focus on something. Some people call it The Law of Attraction, others selective perception, I think it's a combination of the two, but in any case, do remember what Robert Kiyosaki teaches: "To increase your financial wealth, you must first increase your financial vocabulary."

I didn't really understand this at first, but then I understood; you become more aware of options available to you, when you understand the concepts. And obviously the things on our minds are those on our tongues, so after sharing my ideas and plans with friends, somehow I was invited to participate with another friend in a local business venture.

For now we're doing market research, so I will only mention that it has something to do with the cell phone market. Chances are it won't be huge, but it may add a few dollars towards My First 2k!

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Thanks for reading. More to come as I reach My First 2k

$100 per Day or Turtle vs Hare

2009-09-07T15:47:00.011-04:00

Of course when I started the My First 2K competition, I was primarily interested in learning and applying methods of making money that were different from finding a new job or working longer hours. I knew that the income I would be TRULLY proud of, a dollar or a million, would be that, which came from alternative revenue streams. Ones that I would then be able to share with the other members of My First 2K's competition.

In the process of finding these golden streams I wised up a bit. Sure there are strokes of genious that bring amazing and immediate results and inspire the rest of us, but their success most often isn't subject to replication. Often it's a matter of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right mental inclination; you know, what many people call 'luck'.

In fact, I would like to share one such story with you. It is a story from the book The One Minute Millionaire. Like many stories it centres around change; the Brookly Bridge in NY was being dismantled, in way for a new bridge. Our hero (the ruthless money making machine; MMM for short) saw this as an opportunity!

Perhaps, you and I would see an opportunity in the pile of lumber that the construction workers took down and needed to get rid of as well. Maybe we'd think that we could use that lumber as firewood, or maybe we'd plan to build a ship, in which we'd sail away only to return with a hull full of riches. But MMM had a mentality that was different! He saw an opportunity for IMMEDIATE financial gain. A real win-win too!

He approached the foreman with an offer to get rid of the wood from the old bridge. From the foreman's point of view, getting rid of the wood was his responsibility, and added work for him and his guys, so he happily accepted. Now MMM had the wood, and he set in action his master plan. Instead of reselling the lumber as firewood, he created a higher perceived value for it and sold it off!

He cut the lumber into little pieces, and together with certificates of authenticity that he printed, he sold them off for a few bucks a piece, as pieces of N.Y.'s history.

That's right! Worthless wood, became thousands-of-dollars of HISTORY, because MMM saw the same thing through his own lense, from a different angle!

In much the same way pieces of the Berlin Wall are sold of for a few Euros a piece to Berlin's tourists, but where am I going to create a piece of history to cell in my city?

Well. That is why I say I wised up. I am still just as interested in a quick way to riches. But NOW I am also open to the slower approach. A way that I overlooked, while I was looking for MY bridge.

What I came across was a model of growing slow, but having a steady income. I found my inspiration in an eHow article, and after tweaking a good idea to make it better, would like to share it with you. It's not so much that it's growing slowly, as it is doing things right!

Izzytellsall, the author of the article "How to Make $100 a Day with Niche Blogging" breaks down the process into a few simple steps and recommends that you follow one golden rule; focus on quality, not quantity! To the adsense profit, add affiliate marketing revenu and you'll have a killer combination!

Remember first that the development of a $100/day website is much like the development of a $5/day website (or even 20 of them!). You still have to put in similar effort!

Then the first step, as you probably guessed though, is RESEARCH. Use google's keyword tool to help you narrow down your niche, and select those keywords that have the adequate payout. Type in as many words as you can think of that will relate to your topic of interest, and scroll down to the bottom of the page for the words that google recommends as related. That will help you find more word ideas!

For start; select those words that have at least 4,000 monthly searches and an estimated CPC of about $1.50. (Higher amounts are either way too competative or don't last as a consistent payout.)

For your second step begin with a little SEO in mind; that is pick a word or phrase that would be all encompassing of the words you selected. (So if your words are: storing stamps, cleaning staps, trading stamps; a good name would be collecting-stamps.com, or any closest availabe varient)

Next install an adsense theme to the blog you started for this venture.

For the fourth step cross reference the words that have an acceptable CPC value, and search volume against the number of pages that google has indexed.

For example:

'stamp cleaning' is searched 4,000 times, the CPC is 1.40

'stamp storing' is searched 4,000 times, the CPC is 1.50

At first glance, you may think that 'stamp storing' is a better choice, but I advise you reconsider! Type each keyword combination "in quotation marks" into google's search box and see the number of page results. The reason for quotation marks; is because it's an instruction for google to only show you the results where 'stamp storing' appear side-by-side and in that order! (A page that has the phrase 'storing stamp' or 'storing all your stamps' is irrelevant to you)

So then if 'stamp cleaning' returns 15,000 pages, while 'stamp storing' returns 30,000 pages, you know that 'stamp cleaning' is a better choice; since you will find it easier to get higher google rating.

In step five write an article tailored to promote a chosen keyword and post it to your blog. More keywords = more articles. Whether you post is a new page or a new post, really depends on what you're planning to do with it. Here is a forum discussion of which is better for SEO.

Then for step six register an adsense account, and install it to your blog

Write one more article per keyword in step seven, and submit them to article publishing sites. While you`re doing this, why not make a few pennies off of them as well? Check out My First 2K's Resources for a list of websites that earn you money online, and select those that are relevant (like eHow, which pays out half the advertising revenue your articlesa helped generate) You want to have your keyword repeating enough, but not too much. 2-5% is a good rule-of-thumb. Use the the Keyword Density Tool to find out your word`s density.

Repeat, repeat, repeat. That's step eight for you! The more relevant articles you have, tailored for a specific resource (those on your blog, and on article hosting websites, linking to your blog) the better your search result position in google - the more visitors you get!

Step nine is all about generating more revenue! You should already be trying to submit your articles to websites that do ad revenue sharing, but now let's do more with your website. Besides relevant adsense ads, you can also incorporate some text-link ads and more importantly affiliate products! Check Amazon and clickbank.com for products that are relevant to your site and create a product review or promotion page on your blog. Now the visitors to your site can make a purchase, earning you a commission!

If you need more keywords, more things to write about, proceed to step ten; go to google's keyword tool, but instead of entering a keyword, get suggestions from entering your blog's URL! Google will recommend relevant content for you!

Now you may be asking yourself still, 'Why is this better than doing multiple mediocre websites, promoting different products?' Well I'll be happy to tell you: Poor websites (ie content and layout...you know quality) will not get people talking about them, referring them, and sharring them.

Good ones will!

What you are doing here is you're becoming the leader in a niche! Articles that are written for users, not just for search engines make the site useful. It is then shared, and posted on forums and other places where you didn't think possible. Now other people are promotting YOUR SITE - and your site avalanches the number of unique and repeat visitors. So even if they didn't click on some ad the first time around, they may NOW.

That's what my research at this time has led me to believe anyways; that to build success, I must build quality!

- Back to My First 2K -

How to Flip Websites

2009-09-07T12:50:00.011-04:00

For now I have not tried to flip websites, but having come across this, I recognized it as informative, with many resources to get you started. Perhaps on my way to make My First 2K I will flip websites, but for now, my focus lies elsewhere. Still this is a great tutorial for the overall process of such a venture. Please enjoy:

How to Flip Websites

Step 1
The first thing you need to do if you want to learn how to flip websites is understand the importance of market research. More specifically you need to understand what kind of websites people are buying. It's much easier to sell something if the person is looking to buy exactly what you are selling. I do my research on how to flip websites at Sitepoint.com. You want to look at the "startup websites for sale" under the Marketplace section. Basically you are going to look at the site the people are bidding on or flat out buying. Write down the topics of those sites. Also, notice what type of site it is (blog, adsense site, affiliate sales site, etc.). Take note of how much these sites are selling for. Don't underestimate this step! It is very important if you want to learn how to flip websites.
Step 2
The next step of how to flip websites is decide on a topic/niche for your website. This is where you apply what you learned in step 1 (Market Research). Make a decision on the topic and style of your website. Go to Namecheap.com and register a .com domain name for your site. You want a .com domain name because you'll be able to sell your site for more money than a .net or .info.
Step 3
The next step of how to flip websites is finding somewhere to host your website. I only recommend one hosting company and that's Host Gator. They have packages starting at like $8/month. If you are serious about how to flip websites or internet marketing in general you need to have your own hosting. Sell your first site and you'll have several months already paid for.
Step 4
Then next step of how to flip websites is actually building the site. I recommend using Weebly.com for building your websites. It's free to use. Again, this is my recommendation on how to flip websites. If you have another way to do any of these steps please do what you are most comfortable with, because all that matters is that you succeed. I know there are many ways to flip websites. I also recommend that you upgrade your Weebly account from the free version once you get going. You are allowed more sites on your account and don't have to have the Weebly advertisement on the bottom of the website. If you get stuck using weebly there are many videos on youtube that show you how to build a website.
The design of the site should be the following: (or something similar)

- Home page- have a picture and a 500 word article about your topic. You also should make a custom header. (Use a free header creation program like Xheader)
- Books page- Use Amazon's affiliate program and place a widget on this page.
- Video's- Put some youtube videos related to your topic on this page.

The key of how to flip websites is make it seem like you've put some time into this site. Anyone can just make a site using weebly and post it for sale in 10 minutes. But you need to make it look like you spent some time on this. The best way to do that is to actually spend some time on it!

Step 5

The next step of how to flip websites is to list the website for sale. List it for sale on Sitepoint's "startup websites for sale" section. This will cost you $10. It's worth it because Sitepoint is the KING of website marketplaces. Look at listing for sites for sale that are similar to your site (you should have done this in step 1 but do it again!). You want to write your listing similar to the other listings. You are using what works...I'm a firm believer of if it's not broke don't fix it! I recommend a starting price of $1 with a reserve price of your rock bottom price which you need to determine.

There are no guarantees but, if your first site doesn't sell...move on to another one. Focus more on the market research. You will learn something new each time you go through the process of how to flip websites.

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these are eHow steps that were posted by Michael T Foy

- Back to My First 2K -

Contacting a Mentor

2009-09-05T22:22:00.002-04:00

This is brilliant advice from Tim Ferriss' book The 4 Hour Workweek. I shared this with my close friend, whom I knew to be interested in many prominent politician and veteran hockey stars. This technique helped him reach some of those personal idols of his, and so I want to share it with the rest of you.

Now again. It is not mine, though I admit I wish I HAD conceived it. I discovered it in Timothy Ferriss' book, and now share it with you. I hope that it will help you reach those individuals that

Best calling before 8:30 or after 6 to reduce run-ins with secretaries

Have a single question in mind, one that you have researched, but have been unable to answer yourself.

Aim for the top dogs.

Use www.contactanycelebrity.com if need be

Unknown answerer: This is the office of Mentor X

You: Hi, this is _________ calling for Tim Ferriss, please[1]

Answerer: May I ask what this is regarding?

You: Sure. I know this might sound a bit odd,[2] but I’m a first-time author and just read his interview in NY Times.[3] I’m a longtime[4] fan and have finally built up the courage to[5] call him for one specific piece of advice. It wouldn’t take more than two minutes of his time. Is there any way you can help me get through to him?[6] I really, really appreciate whatever you can do.

Answerer: Hmmm… Just a second. Let me see if he’s available. [minutes later] Here you go. Good luck. [ring to another line]

Mentor: Mentor here.

You: Hi, Mr. Mentor. My name is Yusuf Faqiri. I know this might sound a bit odd, but I’m a first-time author and a longtime fan. I just read your interview in the NY Times and finally built up the courage to call. I have wanted to ask you for a specific piece of advice for a long time, and it shouldn’t take more than two minutes of your time. May I?[7]

Mentor: Uh…OK. Go ahead. I have to be in a call in a few minutes.

You: [at the end of the call] Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I if I have the occasional tough question – very occasional – is there any chance I could keep in touch via email?[8]

[1] Said casually and with confidence, this alone will get you through. Asking for “mr/mrs” is a dead giveaway that you don’t know them. You can increase your chances of getting through, but run the risk of looking foolish if you ask for them by first name alone.

[2] Softens up and makes person curious and less likely to spit out “no”

[3] This answers who and why you’re calling. “First time” triggers sympathy, and find a recent media article as a trigger for calling

[4] if you can’t call yourself a longtime fan, say that you have followed their career or business exploits for a certain number of years

[5] when they think you’re nervous, they lower their guard. Often do this even when not nervous.

[6] Wording is critical. You’re asking them to help you do something

[7] Get to the point and pull the trigger

[8] end conversation by opening the door for future contact. Start with an email and let your relationship develop.

Please check out the www.fourhourworkweek.com for more great tools that will get you closer to your dreams!

ClickBank Gravity

2009-09-05T00:29:00.003-04:00

Clickbank Gravity helps you understand how many people are promoting a given product as an affiliate. Like Page Rank, gravity has its own algorithm, but one thing to remember is that it's only an estimate.

Let's say that you see a product with clickbank gravity of 250+. This tells you that the product is really really popular. NOT that there is 250+ affiliates that are promoting it (though that may be true).

Expect to encounter lots of competition for this product, but also know that somewhere this product is making someone money! (If you chose to compete, that someone may end up being you)

While for the most part, clickbank gravity ranking algorithms is unknown, some parts have been speculated over in forums and resource pages. The part that was of interest to me was the recency factor. Simply put same product, same price; if it was sold last week, it will have a lower rating, than if it was sold yesterday.

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section if you like!

d-9movie.com ebay listing

2009-09-05T00:13:00.006-04:00

Sample ad that I placed on eBay to sell the d-9movie.com domain in my quest to make My First 2K. Only 25 people viewed it, though maybe 5 of them were mine off different computers checking the status of the auction.

Sometimes people bid at the very last minutes of the auction. But that way I may lose the domain name at far below my desired price. To prevent the auction ending, and the item selling for a mere $12, I ended the auction early at no charge to me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yours to own NOW ++ d-9movie.com ++

Item condition:

Ended:

Aug 31, 200910:44:49 EDT

Bid history:

0 bids

Starting bid:

US $12.00

Approximately C $13.28

Shipping:

Read item description or contact seller for details. | See all details

Estimated delivery time varies for items shipped from an international location

Returns:

No Returns Accepted

Coverage:

Not available

www.d-9movie.com

Major promotional campaign was for 'd-9' NOT 'district-9' (hence the official website www.d-9.com) That's why this domain name holds special value to anyone interested in profiting from this movie's hit status.

Happy bidding, and good luck!

--- --- --- ---
(Registered until July 2010)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Please include your GoDaddy Account # or Username AND Email Address with your payment.
If you don't already have a GoDaddy account, please sign up prior to bidding. It's completely FREE! Ownership of the domain will be moved ("pushed") to your GoDaddy account within two business days of your payment clearing AND receipt of your GoDaddy information.
Please send any and all questions, comments or concerns prior to bidding. Thanks!

TERMS:
By bidding on this listing, you acknowledge that you have read, understand and agree to the following terms & conditions:
This auction is for the domain name only. No website, hosting or content of any kind is included with this auction.
You are bidding solely on the ownership rights to this valuable domain name.
The domain will only be moved ("pushed") to a valid GoDaddy account.
The current owner is not responsible for how the domain is used after the transfer of ownership or any
conditions resulting from the actions of previous owners.
The right to end this listing early for any or no reason is reserved.
Only payment via PayPal will be accepted.
Payment is due within 48 hours of the end of auction.
If payment is not made on time, and no communication is received, the purchase agreement may be voided by the seller and the item may be relisted.
Names not claimed within 30 days of cleared payment remain the property of the current owner. There are no income guarantees and no hidden fees.

13 Most Powerful Words in Marketing

2009-09-05T00:04:00.002-04:00

The 13 Most Powerful Words in Marketing are great to use when creating any personal or business campaign. They really do capture an individual's attention, and prompt action when used well. I recommend them for any ads that you post or promotions you create, or emails you write, really use them and thier variants.

So again, here they are, The 13 Most Powerful Words in Marketing

You
Money
Save
New
Results
Easy
Health
Safety
Love
Discovery
Proven
Guaranteed
Free

(A Yale University Study identified 12 most powerful selling words. The 12 are the first 12 and over the years, the word 'free' has been added. Be weary of it, as online it really has been overused.)

Non-Disclosure Agreement aka Confidential Disclosure Agreement

2009-09-04T23:50:00.007-04:00

Sample Non-Disclosure Agreement aka Confidential Disclosure Agreement

CONFIDENTIALITY AND CONFIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (CDA)

Between:

[Company name and address]

____________________________

and

[Your name and address]

____________________________

1. On the understanding that both parties are interested in meeting to consider possible collaboration in developments arising from [your name]’s intellectual property it is agreed that all information, whether oral, written or otherwise, that is supplied in the course or as a result of so meeting shall be treated as confidential by the receiving party.

2. The receiving party undertakes not to use the information for any purpose, other than for the purpose of considering the said collaboration, without obtaining the written agreement of the disclosing party.

3. This Agreement applies to both technical and commercial information communicated by either party.

4. This Agreement does not apply to any information in the public domain or which the receiving party can show was either already lawfully in their possession prior to its disclosure by the other party or acquired without the involvement, either directly or indirectly, of the disclosing party.

5. Either party to this Agreement shall on request from the other return any documents or items connected with the disclosure and shall not retain any unauthorized copies or likenesses.

6. This Agreement, or the supply of information referred to in paragraph 1, does not create any licence, title or interest in respect of any Intellectual Property Rights of the disclosing party.

7. After X [numerals] years from the date hereof each party shall be relieved of all

obligations under this Agreement.

Signed [Your signature]

____________________________

For [Your business/trading name if relevant]

____________________________

Date

____________________________

Signed [Company representative’s signature]

____________________________

For [Company name]

____________________________

Date

____________________________

original at: www.ipo.gov.uk/cda.pdf

CONFIDENTIALITY AND NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT

WHEREAS, [YOUR NAME] agrees to furnish _____________________ certain confidential information relating to ideas, inventions or products for the purposes of determining an interest in developing, manufacturing, selling and/or joint venturing;

WHEREAS, _____________________ agrees to review, examine, inspect or obtain such confidential information only for the purposes described above, and to otherwise hold such information confidential pursuant to the terms of this Agreement.

BE IT KNOWN, that [YOUR NAME] has or shall furnish to _____________________ certain confidential information and may further allow _____________________ the right to discuss or interview representatives of [YOUR NAME] on the following conditions:

1. _____________________ agrees to hold confidential or proprietary information or trade secrets ("confidential information") in trust and confidence and agrees that it shall be used only for the contemplated purposes, shall not be used for any other purpose, or disclosed to any third party.

2. No copies will be made or retained of any written information or prototypes supplied without the permission of [YOUR NAME].

3. At the conclusion of any discussions, or upon demand by [YOUR NAME], all confidential information, including prototypes, written notes, photographs, sketches, models, memoranda or notes taken shall be returned to [YOUR NAME].

4. Confidential information shall not be disclosed to any employee, consultant or third party unless they agree to execute and be bound by the terms of this Agreement, and have been approved by [YOUR NAME].

5. This Agreement and its validity, construction and effect shall be governed by the laws of [insert jurisdiction].

AGREED AND ACCEPTED BY:

Date:_______________

By_____________________________ Witness:___________________________

Title:____________________________

By______________________________

Title__________________________

Web Developers Profit Sharing Ad

2009-09-04T23:29:00.005-04:00

Sample Web Developer Ad that I placed on kijiji in order to find someone willing to join our team and help Mark Shpuntov and I, design the amazing resource for students

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Web Developer Wanted – Profit Sharing ONLY

Ever wish you were a part of Google, or Facebook when THEY were starting out?

Well don’t miss this chance!

Our venture has the potential to revolutionize the market. Come on board at startup to reap the rich rewards!!

To assist with the development of the website we are looking for individuals with html knowledge who can commitment to the task at hand.

All levels of experience are welcome, and knowledge of Java and Flash is a plus!

Students welcome

Tell us about yourself in your reply, then meet with us in Toronto to discuss terms.

Competition Update 1

2009-09-04T22:15:00.023-04:00

My First 2K Update 1

$120 up, $45 invested

update includes:

first 4 domain names I purchased
clickbank promotions via kijiji
iPhone App Development
new website idea
promotions new approach
datewell.wordpress.com

The revenue that I generated from the sale of bed, was not immediately reinvested. After much deliberation I purchased 4 domains (mjwords.com, bestphone09.com, d9movie.com, d-9movie.com). The domains I first tried to sell on their own to nautral visitors (and at around the time of the release of the movie District 9, I did have natural traffic of 10-25 people per day), but there was a lack of interest.

I then 'parked' the domain on www.sedo.com, which simply means that instead of redirecting the Domain Name like d-9movie.com to http://sites.google.com/site/dist9mov/, it was now hosted on Sedo's page, and the content that came up was now different. The original was a pitch page, asking people, if interested to check out my other websites for sale, as well as email me a bid. The new host placed its own content, offering an array of ads, which if clicked generated a few pennies for me (6 clicks about $1.30), as well as a link, that could be pressed to purchase my domain (no doubt with a cut going to Sedo)

I listed my domain names for auction at $60, as that was the minimum price allowed to ensure Sedo collects its listing fees. Those with the Certified Seal from GoDaddy (read more about it on the Domain Name Arbitrage page) were listed immediately, while the two without one were delayed 24 hours.

But that doesn't even matter, because later, when I was managing my domains I discovered that none of my auctions were actually listed!

At the same time I registered for an eBay account and listed the two movie domains (weeks after the movie came out) at a starting price of $12 to motivate bidding on a 5 and 3 day auction, and no reserve, but received no more than 25 views for one, and 8 views for the other, and NO BIDS.

Could be because it was too late, could be because my eBay rating is 0, could be because my listing was not captivating enough.

In any case, I found great terms and conditions while browsing other sold Domain Names in the process of creating my listing and found great ones that I used on my eBay listing. You can check them out here: d-9movie.com eBay listing

It didn't help that my eBay listing was not worldwide, only limited to the US and Canada. That as I figured out a bit later has to do with shipping selected. If shipping offered is only to North America; then the listings will only be visible on eBay.com and eBay.ca, NOT on eBay UK or France, or anywhere else in the world.

So back to the drawing board; eBay offers 5 free listings per month, time to re- list with them and with Sedo!

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As for my other ventures; kijiji.ca started blocking my IP and taking down my posts from the various accounts I had faster than I had time to register them. Thus I haven't been persistant when it came to advertising for the ClickBank products I have selected to promote.

Thus after having about 300 people view my ads for both products, and having about 40 of them click through to the product page, and after having 3 go to the order page, and zero purchase, I changed tactic.

Out of those individuals that have shown interest in going on a profit sharing venture with me, I had not contacted a single one, because I first need to find a way to prevent myself from getting screwed (ie having them take my idea, develop it in a way that I think is best and sell it themselves). The reason I am concerned with this, is because anyone can develop an iPhone Application. One just needs to purchase an SDK Developer package, offered by Apple, have knowledge of an object oriented language (like C+) and off they go! My concern arises from the policy that Apple has:

Every developer, to ensure that their software is not malicious has to tag the code with their own signature, thus being accountable for it. Thus the code has the developers name on it, not mine. It's not a terribly big deal, but when it comes to selling, it is! I say that because when listing a product for sale on the iTunes Store, the banking (and therefore payment) details are entered by the developer, and I have no way of making sure that I get the money for the code that I did not write, and for the program that I did not list just thought of.

As a result of my fear, the original iPhone idea, as well as the several other ones that I subsequently came up with have yet to be manifested.

-------------------------------

With Mark Shpuntov; one of the original My First 2K competitors; we have come up with an amazing website concept that will revolutionize the way students succeed in collages/universities. And at this time, we are communicating with web developers that replied to my ad; so that one of them can come on board in a joint profit sharing venture and help us make our goal a reality. There were many people that saw the ad (over 100), and quite a few replies (over 15). The hardest part was selecting those individuals that indicated that they were interested in profit sharing, AND that had the experience/knowledge we needed (5). The rest were just fishing to get a job and were sending out resumes left right and centre including to my ads, OR were professionals soliciting my business.

Our next step will be to draw out, document, flow chart, categorize and describe everything we want. Meet with a developer, have him/her sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), share the idea and start building the site!

I want to note that Mark is full of brilliant ideas, and seeing how he is moving towards the same goal of financial wealth and freedom; he is often the source I go to, when I need help or want to bounce ideas off someone. Right now he has helped me with a better way of promoting affiliate products, and that method I will share with you next. So please click on his name to discover his latest ventures.

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My original model involved finding a product I would like to become an affiliate for, then promoting it through clever ads on kijiji and craigslist

My ads were however quickly taken down, and I was soon blocked.

In the new model, I select a product based on its popularity and money making potential. ClickBank calls it gravity. (You can read more here about What is Clickbank Gravity)

After all, it takes just about the same amount of effort to promote any one product, so you might as well select one that has a better payout. Check out the payout, and check out the competition and if it's selling (ie gravity). Next I look for a product that I can generate natural traffic to, rather than have to worry about advertisers. This is done by creating a page, and backlinking to it to bump it up on search results. The backlinks come from creating articles on free ezines and building squidoo lenses.

All that work of course should not be done for just any seemingly profitable product, but only for those that seem easier to promote. For example: there is several hundred searches for 'copy wii games' in google each month, but there is also a ton of page results that google returns. It's relatively easy with SEO to rank first out of 5000 pages, but increasingly harder as the numbers go up.

So what I look for is some niche market; a key phrase that has a decent search volume to provide natural traffic, and I compare it to the number of page results that google returns when you search for that term. Google's search engine has the total number of pages, and google's keyword tool (like the one for PPC) provides the monthly search estimate (or you can go to: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/ and get another estimate for 3 major search engines)

With the help of this keyword tool and google, I found that 'trout bait' is searched from 56 times a day, to 1000 times a month, while google offers 36,500 results. The payout is $10-13 for different products, and I have yet to select the one I will be promoting. But in contrast, 'copy wii games' is searched between 139 times a day to 4400 times a month, pays out $15-25, but google offers 3,780,000 results. (So that venture I dropped and instead created troutbait.wordpress.com)

So in summary, the new model is: look at clickbank's gravity and payout, evaluate competition on google, build a promotional system out of squidoo lenses and ezine articles and ads linking them to your main page.

Next step: recurring payments; sign up the person once, but for a monthly program.

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datewell.wordpress.com has been on the backburner, with neither myself or Dave contributing any more to it then my original 77 words to use instead of 'sexy' or 'cute'

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Thanks for reading, more to come as I reach My First 2K

Search Engine Optimization

2009-08-27T18:36:00.008-04:00

great tool: http://www.seochat.com/

There are many factors that go into Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Google for example takes hundreds of factors and variables into consideration when ranking a result you searched for. After all, when you search for a query like 'legal advice' google must rank all the 88,000,000 + results. One of them will be first and one will be last.

Some of the variables will be discussed below, but Search Engine Optimization, really just boils down to two things:

Great Content (that is of importance to users)
Great Links (from authority websites)

The guys at SEOmoz identified some of the othe components

KW Usage Factors:

KW in title tag
KW in header tags
KW in document text
KW in internal links pointing to the page
KW in domain and/or URL

Domain Strength

Registration history
Domain age
Strength of links pointing to the domain
Topical neighborhood of domain based on inlinks & outlinks
Historical use & links pattern to domain

Inbound Link Score

Age of links
Quality of domains sending links
Quality of pages sending links
Anchor text of links
Link quantity/weight metric (Pagerank or a variation)
Subject matter of linking pages/sites

User Data

Historical CTR to page in SERPs
Time users spend on page
Search requests for URL/domain
Historical visits/use of URL/domain by users GG can monitor (toolbar, wifi, analytics, etc.)

Content Quality Score

Potentially given by hand for popular queries/pages
Provided by Google raters (remember Henk?)
Machine-algos for rating text quality/readability/etc

source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-little-piece-of-the-google-algorithm-revealed

good to have sitemap, and good to have site submitted to google's webmaster.

I had trouble with my wordpress site, but found the answer here:

http://support.wordpress.com/verifying-with-google-webmaster-tools/

Meta data

<meta name="description" content="add description here">
<meta name="keywords" content="add comments separated by commas here">

Domain Name Arbitrage

2009-07-30T22:57:00.013-04:00

Here are steps you can take to make money off of buying and selling a domain name.

Essentially, what you are doing is speculating on the future events. You're hoping to find a domain name for a current event, or an upcoming movie, or a rock group, that you think will be worth more to someone else then its current registration price.

What I mean is simply a domain like www.als;kfjsdl;afjlsd;jakl;.com, while available, may not be sought after by many people (if at all), while www.nike.com would be worth thousands if not millions to not only the clothing giant, but to anyone advertising/selling/promoting or even competing with Nike's products.

You then want to find a domain that you think will be of value to someone, register it, hold it for as long as necessary, and then sell it!

Below I will share the experience I gained when registering my very first 4 domains.
Follow the same steps and you can do the same:

Select Your Domain Name:
Best tool I found to date is the http://instantdomainsearch.com, the availability for .com, .net and .org is displayed immediately.
Register the Domain Name:
Finally when you find the domain name that you think will be of value to someone in the future, register it! The process is simple, so don't delay. Domain names sell for about $10/year at market places like GoDaddy.com. InstantDomainSearch however offers a coupon, of $2.50 when you click on the GoDaddy link directly below their domain name search bar.

Now register the domain name, by setting up an account with GoDaddy. There are many extra features that these guys will try to sell to you, so be wise with what you check off.
For example the Certified Domain Seal is offered for an additional $2.99. For my purposes of selling and reselling a website, it was useless.
(Certified Domain Seal: In a nutshell it verifies that the contact information submitted during the registration is valid. Hence you will find an additional email in your inbox prompting you to follow a link to verify your email address, and an automated phone call to a phone you chose, giving you a number that you then must enter online to verify your phone. Congratulations, now your site will have GoDaddy's seal ensuring that you're the legitimate owner, and of course a link to GoDaddy, thus paying to advertise for them! From an ecommerce perspective though, any seal at the checkout section increases conversions. I did discover an additional benefit to the seal when I was listing my pages on sedo; those domain names with a seal were available to be lited on the auction page almost immediately, but the domain names without a seal were delayed 24 hours. My conclusion: is still that they are not worth it.)
Web-Hosting Options:
The company with which you registered your domain name will probably offer to do your hosting. Strictly for reselling your domain, you don't need hosting at all. When however I registered d-9movie.com, GoDaddy just parked its ads there. And while I was happy to not pay GoDaddy for hosting, I did not want to advertise for them for free! I registered with sites.google.com and within a few minutes designed a simple page (http://sites.google.com/site/dist9mov) with two lines; offering an email with an automatic 'mailto:' html tag; letting visitors know that the domain name was for sale, and prompting them to email me offers.
URL Forwarding & URL Masking:
So if you want visitors to see something of yours, while you do not pay a cent to place your content, they need to be forwarded.

Because as you probably deduced, those sites offering free hosting also give you a free domain name. So while you just registered www.WantedDomain.com, anyone going there will see nothing of yours; you need visitors to go to your FREE site that is: www.WantedDomainIsForSale.blogger.com or http://sites.google.com/site/WantedDomainIsForSale for example.

GoDaddy made forwarding and masking very easy, so I kept using it. Under Domain Related on the left hand side menu, select Domain Forwarding. Under forwarding enter the URL of the content you'd like visitors to see when they go to the domain name you just purchased. Select 301 or 302 notice to inform the search engines if the domain has moved temporarily or permanently (probably will affect the search result's listed URL). Under masking enter the same URL, and now instead of the name of the free host, you will have the domain name you purchased displayed for the visitors.

Beyond that, you'll read: 'Note: When you enable forwarding and masking, you must manually update your nameservers to the Parked/Forwarded Nameservers before forwarding can take effect. To update your nameservers, click the Nameservers button in the action bar above after you have completed the forwarding and masking task.'
I have NEVER done this, and STILL had my domain names both forwarded and masked within minutes. That's why it's an easy process.

<<<>> http://www.namepros.com/
Tracking:
I was interested to find out how many visitors I had to my site, so while I could have added a free counter (one of the gadgets offered by sites.google) I could have opted out for: <<<>>> but instead I registered also with http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97459
Selling <<>> <<>>
However, in most cases, you can’t transfer the domain away from the registrar unless you wait 60 days after registration. If you are within that 60-day period, you can still perform what is called a “push.” However, in most cases, you can’t transfer the domain away from the registrar unless you wait 60 days after registration. If you are within that 60-day period, you can still perform what is called a “push.”
On the flip side, if you don’t know the person you are transacting with, you run the risk of being scammed. If you sold a domain and the person who bought it decided to do a chargeback, that money could be zapped right out of your account. There have been many cases where domainers have sold domains, only to have the “buyers” process a chargeback on the credit cards attached to their Paypal.com accounts.
transacting large amounts of money for domains via Paypal.com is probably not the best avenue. In place of Paypal.com, for domain transactions, I whole-heartedly recommend escrow services like Sedo.com, Escrow.com and Afternic.com. For Paypal.com-like transactions, less the charge-back risk, Moneybookers.com is another respectable alternative
Sedo.com – Sedo specializes in international-domain names and domains with foreign traffic. Sedo.com also has its own auction house -- the world’s largest.

NameDrive.com – NameDrive also specializes in international domain names and names with foreign traffic, but it offers many different types of landers, while also incorporating different languages. NameDrive.com offers a “park and sell” option, and is widely known for its excellent customer service. They also have a blog that they update often, blog.namedrive.com.

Fabulous.com – Fabulous.com has the best poker/casino/gambling PPC payouts, hands down. Accounts at Fabulous are a bit more difficult to get, but they are an absolute necessity to have, if you own poker-, casino-, gambling-type domains. Fabulous.com also does well with strong generic names.

Parked.com – Parked.com is known for paying its clients twice per month—the only one in the industry that pays out two times in a month. A client gets paid every 15 days, allowing the client to reinvest quickly. Parked.com also offers a wide array of parking graphics, so you can tweak the parking pages to your level of choice.
Whypark.com - Great when it comes to building content rather than just ads <><><><

If you are looking for a parking company and need a quick review, I would suggest you check ParkQuick’s list first.
Beyond domainnews.com, there are also a number of other places that offer some great insight regarding domains.
Here are a few:

www.namepros.com - An open, community-based domaining talk group that talks about buying and selling domains, and anything else domain-related.

www.dnforum.com – The world’s largest domain forum. A paid membership is required, but is well worth the price.

www.whizzbangsblog.com – Michael Gilmour, a great friend of mine, updates his blog very regularly. He is involved in PPC optimization and works hard to promote parking transparency. Micheal posts his blog entries here on DomainNews on a daily basis.

www.elliotsblog.com – Another good friend of mine, Elliot, writes about the development of his domain project, his Lowell.com (a site he’s building from scratch about a town in Massachusetts) and about domains/domaining in general. He is a proponent of the ICA --www.internetcommerce.org -- and he also lists some of his own domains for sale on his blog.

www.conceptualist.com – Sahar Sarid is one of the world’s biggest domainers. Sahar writes about the state of the domain industry, along with a lot of insight about the domaining industry’s biggest and newest trends. His blog entries are posted here on DomainNews on a daily basis.

www.dnflipping.com – Morgan Linton is a professional I came to know through networking. I have read Linton’s book and am quite impressed. Even when speaking about my own book, I plug Linton’s book about flipping domains as another great source of knowledge.

http://www.domaingraduate.com/secure/go.php?r=17&i=l0 – This book is my own work, which I put together over the course of a year of domaining. It is tailored exclusively to the new domainer and illustrates some of the most “need-to-know” information on domain investment for beginners.

Purchased Domain Names

2009-07-26T22:44:00.010-04:00

For a while I have found myself preoccupied with other things, procrastinating the work at hand and not getting any closer to my first 2k.

After all, now that I have a bit of start-up capital, my next step is to find/create a product to advertise and also to find someone to create an iPhone app. But the thing with the app is that only Registered App Developers are allowed to submit their code to the iStore. I am trying to avoid registering and furthermore, I have no knowledge of any of the coding languages.

This is a problem, because the developer submits the app, after placing their digital signature on it (as a way to ensure that the application has been designed by that individual, and to also ensure that someone is held accountable, if the app is in any way harmful to the end-user)

So now I placed those ideas on a back-burner, and instead am focusing on buying domain names at a cheap price, and selling them high.

Hence the idea of Domain Name Arbitrage. A domain name like MichaelJacksonsGlobalTribute.com can be registered for under $11 at www.godaddy.com and then later sold on eBay for well over $1,000!!!

Now with Michael Jackson it was all hype after his death, I almost wish that it was a big PR campaign, one that was never done before, one that crossed over the 'acceptable boundary' and one that finally brought MJ back to life. Because now everyone is interested in his last dance-move, his booked out (and now undelivered) concerts, and his new songs that he was supposed to play.

Anyway, I searched eBay to find the listings that were popular and more importantly those that sold (select 'completed auctions' in the advanced search section). I discovered that things to do with competitive markets (like insurance and mortgages), new products and trends were listed, but few were actually selling for a lot.

I then started searching instantdomainsearch.com for a list of available names that had to do with MJ, new products, cellphones and anything else that was upcoming.

I found that District 9 is coming out but their campaign is advertised as d-9. In fact, even their main website is www.d-9.com

So while district9movie was taken among with many of its variants, I was ecstatic to find and register

www.d-9movie.com
www.d9movie.com
(total cost about $22)

and also
www.mjwords.com
www.bestphone09.com
(total cost about $16)

NOTE: that you save $2.50 or so when you reach goDaddy through instantdomainsearch as they apply a coupon.

The first two I splurged on an additional Certified Domain Seal for $2.99 each per year. The last two I didn't. I discovered the difference when I opened my inbox. There was an additional email prompting me to verify that the email was indeed mine, and then a link to verify my phone number. (quite useless for my purposes, but check out my Domain Name Arbitrage post for more info)

For each I created a website on google's free host, and forwarded the domains to those sites, to allow potential buyers and easy way to contact me. They are:
http://sites.google.com/site/dist9mov/
http://sites.google.com/site/dis9movie/
http://sites.google.com/site/mjwordssite/
http://sites.google.com/site/bestphone09/

The next step is to place them for sale on eBay (with my newly created account and zero user feedback which may affect the price at which I can advertise the domain) and other auctions like goDaddy's auction and www.sedo.com

RESOURCES

2009-07-21T03:09:00.024-04:00

Here is my ongoing collection of websites that got me started and helped along the way ...

.....

Affiliate Marketing
www.clickbank.com

cb-analytics.com

cbtrends.com
www.commissionjunction.com

Domain search and registration
http://instantdomainsearch.com - search results are instant and can be adjusted in seconds click on the link to the GoDaddy website to register and receive an additional coupon

Domain name's value
http://estibot.com - evaluates the $$$ of the domain based on frequency searched, PageRank, max PPC bid and other factors (better used as a selling point, rather than for its accuracy)

http://www.sedo.com - buy and sell domain names here

Domain Name Masking and Forwarding
www.dot.tk - enter the shorter .tk domain that you would like visitors to use instead of the lengthy one you're currently using. (will appear as: www.yoursite.tk)
http://tinyurl.com - same as above BUT, uses a .com while also keeping the tinyurlpart (will appear as: www.tinyurl.com/234323 or /asfas)

.info or better yet, just register a .info account for 97 cents

Marketing
http://bummarketing.com - ways to great marketing on virtually no budget

Classifieds in order of size

Analytics
http://www.compete.com - chances are, that whatever you came up with, someone else is already doing it. You would like to do it better! so to analyze your competition select site profile from the homepage and enter the competitor you're interested in.
http://google.com/analytics - great addition that can be embedded into your html code that will stay hidden from visitors as it keeps track of: who comes to your site, where they are coming from, how long they spend viewing your pages and much more.

http://urltrends.com - gives your Alexa ranking, the last cashed snapshot that google has, and many many many other graphs and charts!

Keywords Tools
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - generate new keyword ideas, or use this tool to find out what words best describe an existing web page; that will also give a good indication of the types of adsense ads that will be placed on your page.
http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse - thesaurus

Borrow Money

www.prosper.com

www.lendingclub.com

whypark.com <-some thing like sedo

unverified trend finders
trendtracker: www.smallbiztrends.com
iconowatch: www.iconoculture.com
u life's stylephile www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=stylephile
future work: www.iseek.org/sv/35.jsp
e-commers guide daily: www.ecommerce-guide.com/news
trendwatching: www.trendwatching.com

letting search engines know you updated
www.pingoat.com
www.pingomatic.com (a wordpress company)

seem like a bigshot with own favicon
http://html-kit.com/favicon

Paid online
Revver.com - 50% of advertising revenue
www.google.com/adsense
eBay
Google Video (Sponsored Videos with adsense)
Flixya - 50% of advertising
Metacafe
Scoopt - vids, pics, you're the journalist, they sell your media, giving you a cut
spymedia - like schoopt but catching celebrities
blogburst - places blogs on major media sites
payperpost
grooveshark
reviewme - get paid for reviewing products on your blog
www.associatedcontent.com - something to do with selling content to thrid parties
rateitall - rate something/write review, get ad revenue
squidoo - lenses - when someone buys a product through your lens, or clicks a google ad, you get 50%
newsvine.com - $ for writers
istockphoto - photo buff? sell get a cut
daytipper - $3 per tip that gets added

elance

http://www.demandstudios.com/
.....
please feel free to add more in the comments section. If they make the cut, they will appear on this list!

Creation of MyFirst2k

2009-07-13T23:41:00.005-04:00

created My First 2k blog! myfirst2k.blogspot.com

Here I will share how I made my first $2000

The entire process that later can be replicated and improved upon

Date Well

2009-07-13T23:19:00.002-04:00

created a new blog with Dave, using the original title i wanted DateWell (pun on word Well...as an adjective to describe the date, and as a noun... like a 'well of knowledge') problem is that we had to use www.datewell.wordpress.com instead of blogger...so it's not a google blog, ... and maybe the hits on search engine will suffer (at first)

Funny thing is; I wanted the name from blogger, but dateWELL was taken, so we puzzled over another name, forgetting that there is an alternative blog hosting site!

also since im the only one doing THIS i'm considering turning this into a blog, and see if i can get even a bit of traffic that way..and go from there!

good luck in the competition!

got to be #1

2009-07-12T23:52:00.005-04:00

TODAY i came to a conclusion...it doesn't matter if someone else is already doing it... you know why? B/C I CAN DO IT BETTER!!! so that's my approach to an iphone app that is already out there. I am now looking for someone to design the app for me.... While learning more about search engine optimization to get better ranking for the blog i started with Dave yesterday (http://datetell.blogspot.com/) The blog is congruent with our lifestyles; making it relevant for us, and easy to maintain...and after generating traffic... will create revenue through affiliate product placement, adsense or ads!

I basically posted more ads on kijij looking for an iphone app designer. Only one person replied to my ad, and he was from another province, part of a company. I on the other hand was not looking for a professional because that would cost me more than $120 (he quoted me 1.5-2k), so i redesigned the ad latter, and placed them on craigslist as well under student jobs and contract jobs.

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i gave it a more aggressive title, using the word NEEDED, while at the same time trying to attract amateurs interested in profit sharing, stressing the simplicity of the app.

One reply so far that's interested in profit sharing!

bed for sale

2009-07-05T00:12:00.003-04:00

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So this guy saw my original bed for sale ad; emailed me, and we went from there. After playing a bit of phone tag, i got to talk to him Thursday night, and without negotiating over the phone, we just arranged to have him come by to "have a look" the following Saturday in the morning.

By this time I was excited that here I was, about to make progress in the competition and get rid of the bed for 160/150, but like you'd expect, things did not go exactly as i planned.

He ended up bailing out on me, and I was left with a few more email offers to look through, a bit discouraged and ready to budge on the price to motivate a purchase. I was able to arrange for another person to have a look. In hindsight, it's a great idea to have more than one buyer present... that would trigger a fear of loss impulse to buy, as one of the people is afraid that they may end up with nothing. That in turns tends to drive the price up; as there is only one item, but at least twice as many interested parties!

I did what i could to show that there is only one bed, but many more people interested in it; I let her know that she could come in the morning, but as soon as possible as it was a race between her and another person interested in it (a total lie, but hey!, it played to my advantage, as now she was afraid of missing out). We settled on a price over the phone - $120 (really wanted it gone, and needed start-up cap for new ventures) and agreed that if the other person would come first and buy i'd let her know to save her the drive, and i would obviously do the same for the other potential buyer (extra realism for her)

I learned earlier that the more effort a person invests, the more vested the person becomes, and less likely to walk away! So when she was asking me for directions i made sure that i knew how far away she lived.

The further away = the more effort = the more likely she will NOT WANT TO leave empty handed!

She lived far! So that morning when she called to let me know that she was on her way, i knew i'd sell it!

When she arrived, i inconspicuously let her know that there was a person coming later in the afternoon to prevent further bargaining (but she still tried to knock it down to $100). I held the original negotiated price of $120, knowing that she just drove 30 minutes after borrowing a van, and was not at all likely to repeat that ordeal if she could avoid it.

From this i learned something very important. When selling or buying have options, or at the very least pretend to! ALSO don't reveal how much effort went into your actions! Had she told me that i was the first of 7 people she was going to see that day, i would have been way more lenient when it came to price!

In any case; we began do dissemble the bed, and surprise-surprise! The bed frame is assembled by nails, not screws. It WOULDN'T FIT into her car, then latter up her narrow stairs.

Sale lost.

From there on i had to attract people that COULD pick it up, so i deleted all the old ads, and placed an ad targeting people with a bigger car. Frustrated i also drove down the price and made myself seem more desperate to attract more people.
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I adjusted the price, got rid of the renovation story, and further to attract those people that can pick it up included the dimensions after pointing out that it comes assembled.

Because of the words like motivated seller and to go fast, the offers i received via email were $15-20 lower than the original offers.

Still i found someone that seemed interested after he said "I can pick it up tonight", gave him a call, and with minimal headache, sold it the next weekend for $120!

Now i'm in the lead and that $120 will be reinvested into anything that can generate more income; like becoming a merchant rather than an affiliate on clickbank for example.

so bitches.. looks like i'm in the lead! Just now i made my first 120 bux, but more importantly the guy that came by to pick it up is a cool 21 yr old entrepreneur that is now running/starting his own adult diaper company. I hope to meet with him in the future, as he seems to have a sharp mind, and perhaps there are possible partnership or at the very least mutual growth opportunities.

But in any case now i have the finances to launch my own product on clickbank..now i just have to create it!

Booya!

You never know what kind of people you'll meet or which direction life will through you... We exchanged phones and perhaps something will happen from there! I was inspired later to come up with other markets after brainstorming what other products would people be more likely to buy privately online, rather than in a store. (I mean not everyone has the nerve to go into a drugstore and ask for a product to help with anal leakage)

find and copy

2009-07-01T23:19:00.005-04:00

turns out it's not THAT easy to make BIG money if you don't know what you're doing.... so i played around with the whole idea of affiliate marketing with clickbank, found a few products i liked, then started searching google to see how i can advertise for them. And i gatta say that other fuckers are already doing the ones i immediately jumped to... so i had to re evaluate.

I found this guy's blog for a "copy your wii games" product that pays out $15-20 per sale (diff products). He ranks at the top of google's returns when you search for something like "copy games" http://how-*********-games.blogspot.com (i'm in no way am about to advertise for this guy, because i'm going to be doing the same thing myself at copy wii games - https://wiicopygames.wordpress.com )

So instead of competing with him, i instead will steal his model. "copy" "hack" and "unlock" as common as they are, are not the only reoccurring searches,. So i will now find ways to replicate this system.. Perhaps with a quit smoking blog or site... or something

first stab

2009-06-23T17:52:00.016-04:00

with the first 2k competition well on the way, i'd like to share with you some progress:

so I started a few weeks back by going here: clickbank.com and registering a new account. Basically it allows me to become an affiliate for some product, which i selected within a few minutes. I then quickly wrote up an ad and placed it once in two categories on kijiji. (Since receiving about 60 views i took them both down) I also went to dot.tk to create a URL redirect. So that the website: http://9e7e6temu7rxes7f3bhelg1vdq.hop.clickbank.net/ appears a lot neater when i advertise it. I called it www.killerpersonality.tk (absolutely free service, but the TK accounts that are free expire if they receive less than 25 hits per month) I tracked data through clickbank and found out that only 7 ppl went to the site out of the 60 that saw my ad. So now on to a new product...

My ad was pretty good too! (well...in my opinion) it was very simple and like any ad promised the most
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Meanwhile i want a different approach. I don't want to be the one ACTUALLY working; instead I want other people to do that on my behalf. I know that Affiliate programs like clickbank and others require when you have a product to pay a one time activation fee (and or a percentage of sales) but they cover the back-end of banking (which i have no idea how to set up for a website so i'm happy). So i now am open to having a product to sell, for others to promote. BUT before that, i still need to generate money for the one time fee to build a site and register MY product through them.

What i ended up doing was talking to parents and going through my own stuff and found things that i can sell or swap on kijiji/craigslist. I found a few but was procrastinating.

But at 3 am last night i suddenly decided to do what steve pavlina (self-help blogger) recommends here: www.stevepavlina.com/artic les/do-it-now.htm
... as in instead of leaving it for the next day, i said: 'fuck it, i'll just put up something NOW, and then i'll improve on it later' Well guys, the first step is the hardest. But by the time i checked it at noon i already had 44 vies of the old bed I placed for sale ($160, includes mattress and side-table http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-furniture-beds-mattresses-Cozy-bed-for-sale-W0QQAdIdZ137483209 ) and by now i already had one person inquire, so i am negotiating and reposted the ad to make it more recent.
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Basically i made sure that i'm seen as a motivated seller by having the "or best offer" option, and by creating a story as to why i want to get rid of it, and of course mentioning that i want it gone ASAP.

As for the item itself, i used associations like "cozy" and talked about the bed's utility when it comes to toys/books/clothes, to evoke a feeling of comfort and satisfaction.

For the price, i chose a number that i thought would NOT inspire a person to bargain too far down... and indeed, when i compared the replies this ad generated, to the ads generated by the second one, the best offers tended to be $15-20 higher! In fact, there were also no low-baller offers.

ANOTHER cool thing is seeing an opportunity i didn't see before. My grandfather is buying a new car. So for the old one, all he is getting is $100 from the scrap guys that come to collect it. (there is some problem with the steering column.) So i placed another ad but this time to SWAP the car for something more interesting to me.

I'll tell you how it goes...
GOOD LUCK guys

As for the Aerostar my ad I guess was too vague.. while many people saw it, few suggested something to swap me for it, and i would have loved all of those things! I followed the simple rule when selling ANYTHING when you're not the first to market. Do what the other guys are doing, BUT BETTER. So i explored the classifieds until i found similar cars, and tailored my ad to include just enough, while being as ethical about it as i could.

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...with only one reply out of 50+ views, the car quickly went to scrap. And i moved on to the next opportunity!

rules

2009-06-07T11:47:00.002-04:00

the rules were set as no start-up capital allowed; there are plenty of ways to make money online without spending a dime, and many of them i plan to try out here!

hokay, so here we are... with rules that will take shape as we go along.
My plan is to put up some stuff for sale on craigslist/kijiji to raise some startup cap, as i'm operating under the rags to riches model!

I wish you all the best of luck, and wit and creativity to reach your goals, and i hope that by the end of this month we'll have a winner!

too old to be poor

2009-06-02T12:42:00.002-04:00

i shared why i started this group with everyone that accepted the invitation (6 people)

So i thought, i'm too old to be this poor. And while I have one way that I can eventually have more free time and money, it's still only one way, and with a strong emphasis on "eventually" so I created this group.

The premise is simple: Make $2K as soon as possible using methods other than those you are currently using. As in if it's a job, it doesn't count, if it's an alternative revenue stream, DO SHARE. Perhaps together we can make it better, or individually refine our methods and ACT NOW to bring ourselves closer to our goals.

At this time the rules have not been set, and are evolving. I would like to start it THIS SUNDAY (June 7th) though, so let's refine it by then, discussing allowed starting capital, prizes for the winner, cut-off date, and anything else that comes to mind...

start

2009-06-02T12:05:00.004-04:00

inspired in part by Tim Ferriss' 4 Hour Workweek and Robert Allen and Mark Victor Hansen's One Minute Millionaire

it started on facebook with this:

A competition, to be the first to reach $2,000 using alternative revenue streams. The method must be recorded and shared. Ideally replicated.

12 people or so that I thought would benefit from a group with a shared interest were invited to join the group.

Some accepted the challenge....

from here on in, it's my experience....