thedigitalmisfit
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I’ve been a spectator here for a little while after first hearing about it through @Fox and his thread on starting a web design business. I feel now is the time to start posting more and begin my own thread to document my journey.
I started out my own freelancing career trying the same way a lot of people are these days, with web design. I do enjoy it but for me, it’s not the right fit with how I’d like things to be going forward but it has helped guide me in the direction I want to go. One thing was always in the way of this and became a big problem - me and my mindset!
I got started with web design when a friend was talking to me about their site being hacked and the company they were dealing with didn’t help them out like they thought they would. I said something in passing, I can’t remember what now, and I ended building them a new website. I then spent a week learning how to build a website so I could actually do the job. This was my first website and to this day it’s still live, it looks awful in my opinion, but it brings in leads which at the end of the day, is the main thing.
This gave me the bug to try and start my own web design business. I did projects, got paid, got results but I was unhappy and lazy with it if I’m honest. I found time to be a massive struggle for me which in turn led to procrastination. I always struggled with lead generation because of this and the leads I had, I shouldn’t have taken them all on.
Long story short, I now no longer do web design. I’ll only do it for myself or a friend if they ask but not something I’m pushing.
One of the main reasons is time, the second is money and the third is systems. With time and money, I didn’t have the time to really focus on finding the ideal client. I’d find and attract low paying customers who want a website for €500 where you’d need to charge €2,000+.
I did get some good paying clients but a lot were low ballers and this was something I struggled to get past. Also with time, I have a full time job and a family so it was very much a side business and would always be that way.
Due to the time constraints I have, I am a big believer in having a system set up so that things run smooth with or without me involved. With this in mind, SEO is something that I didn’t realise I was actually doing on my first website when starting out and was intrigued to learn more about this.
SEO will allow me to run a business from anywhere and as long as I can begin ranking for myself in a market or niche that people are looking for SEO services, I should be able to begin building from there.
In the meantime, with my current job, I have a massive opportunity to learn about working and selling online, so I have taken this and explored this area more. Why keep trying different things if I’m already working and knowledgeable in a particular field.
With this said, I’m not the best person for coming up with great business ideas if I’m honest, but I’m really good at taking an idea, developing it and turning it into money.
I have a friend who had a business in my local town and one day it came up about selling online. After some talking, we decided to join forces and move the business online.
Having an online store is something we all know about and use everyday but when first starting out, it’s quite popular to do dropshipping from Ali Express which is something I wanted to stay away from. But this opportunity with my friend seemed really good and I knew I could help so investing in his business allowed me to have him run the business on a day to day basis, and I could work remotely to run the online side of things and some of the admin.
Things have been going great and it’s definitely growing but more importantly, I have an outlet to practise different things and implement SEO and I get to reap the rewards of it. In turn, I’ll hopefully be able to begin taking on SEO clients to start work on that business.
I’m now working on another business with another friend that I own 50% of and is in a huge market, but the angle we are taking gives us a great opportunity to penetrate it. Hopefully, it works out and we can grow it from a sapling idea to a viable business.
Again, the idea is to set it up so that there is a system in place to minimise the input and maximise the results. I’ll take my experience from the first business and use it for this one and try to replicate results.
Taking this approach works for me. It has been a huge learning curve but I can use these businesses to improve my own business skills, marketing skills and more importantly, SEO skills as I mentioned, and when I change things, I can see the result of it. Basically using myself as a guinea pig.
This is the first step into making money online and I’m enjoying it so far. It’s time-consuming at first but there are two of us in both businesses so a lot of work is handled by someone else and it works both ways.
If you have any questions or things to add, please comment. I’ll be updating this thread with developments to document what I do and to learn from peoples inputs and hopefully I can help out too.
The only thing I will say is I won’t disclose the industries my businesses are in but I’m open to questions about how I run things and workflows
I started out my own freelancing career trying the same way a lot of people are these days, with web design. I do enjoy it but for me, it’s not the right fit with how I’d like things to be going forward but it has helped guide me in the direction I want to go. One thing was always in the way of this and became a big problem - me and my mindset!
I got started with web design when a friend was talking to me about their site being hacked and the company they were dealing with didn’t help them out like they thought they would. I said something in passing, I can’t remember what now, and I ended building them a new website. I then spent a week learning how to build a website so I could actually do the job. This was my first website and to this day it’s still live, it looks awful in my opinion, but it brings in leads which at the end of the day, is the main thing.
This gave me the bug to try and start my own web design business. I did projects, got paid, got results but I was unhappy and lazy with it if I’m honest. I found time to be a massive struggle for me which in turn led to procrastination. I always struggled with lead generation because of this and the leads I had, I shouldn’t have taken them all on.
Long story short, I now no longer do web design. I’ll only do it for myself or a friend if they ask but not something I’m pushing.
One of the main reasons is time, the second is money and the third is systems. With time and money, I didn’t have the time to really focus on finding the ideal client. I’d find and attract low paying customers who want a website for €500 where you’d need to charge €2,000+.
I did get some good paying clients but a lot were low ballers and this was something I struggled to get past. Also with time, I have a full time job and a family so it was very much a side business and would always be that way.
Due to the time constraints I have, I am a big believer in having a system set up so that things run smooth with or without me involved. With this in mind, SEO is something that I didn’t realise I was actually doing on my first website when starting out and was intrigued to learn more about this.
SEO will allow me to run a business from anywhere and as long as I can begin ranking for myself in a market or niche that people are looking for SEO services, I should be able to begin building from there.
In the meantime, with my current job, I have a massive opportunity to learn about working and selling online, so I have taken this and explored this area more. Why keep trying different things if I’m already working and knowledgeable in a particular field.
With this said, I’m not the best person for coming up with great business ideas if I’m honest, but I’m really good at taking an idea, developing it and turning it into money.
I have a friend who had a business in my local town and one day it came up about selling online. After some talking, we decided to join forces and move the business online.
Having an online store is something we all know about and use everyday but when first starting out, it’s quite popular to do dropshipping from Ali Express which is something I wanted to stay away from. But this opportunity with my friend seemed really good and I knew I could help so investing in his business allowed me to have him run the business on a day to day basis, and I could work remotely to run the online side of things and some of the admin.
Things have been going great and it’s definitely growing but more importantly, I have an outlet to practise different things and implement SEO and I get to reap the rewards of it. In turn, I’ll hopefully be able to begin taking on SEO clients to start work on that business.
I’m now working on another business with another friend that I own 50% of and is in a huge market, but the angle we are taking gives us a great opportunity to penetrate it. Hopefully, it works out and we can grow it from a sapling idea to a viable business.
Again, the idea is to set it up so that there is a system in place to minimise the input and maximise the results. I’ll take my experience from the first business and use it for this one and try to replicate results.
Taking this approach works for me. It has been a huge learning curve but I can use these businesses to improve my own business skills, marketing skills and more importantly, SEO skills as I mentioned, and when I change things, I can see the result of it. Basically using myself as a guinea pig.
This is the first step into making money online and I’m enjoying it so far. It’s time-consuming at first but there are two of us in both businesses so a lot of work is handled by someone else and it works both ways.
If you have any questions or things to add, please comment. I’ll be updating this thread with developments to document what I do and to learn from peoples inputs and hopefully I can help out too.
The only thing I will say is I won’t disclose the industries my businesses are in but I’m open to questions about how I run things and workflows
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