Work

who needs 9-5 work?

If i was to work in a supermarket or a hotel etc… i’d be on minimum wage. I’d also be hating every minute of it as it’s something i’ve no interest in. The beauty of creating sites is that i’m constantly getting better at it, enhancing my skills as i go along and gaining some useful tips and links for future work.

So last week, i took on a challenge trying to prove i could equal if not better minimum wage employment by working online. Apart from the obvious perks of setting my own hours and actually enjoying ‘work’, it would also force me in to gaining more experience plus put some more cash in my pocket.

So i created 4 sites last week. 2 sold, 2 didn’t (imagehostme sold at the BIN of $100). They took a total of 12.5 hours to complete. The two that sold earned $130. The two that didn’t are worth a minimum of $25 each.

But even if we take that $130, subtract $22 (domains and listing costs) it leaves $108 profit working out at $8.64 per hour. Not bad. Add another $50 profit assuming i sell the other two sites and bump the hourly rate up to $12.64 - very close to the $13.53 minimum wage.

Remember, i’m only starting out in design and selling sites… i’ve a lot more to learn So it’s looking good so far - i *could* theoretically work as many hours as i want, but i don’t want to bore myself, so i’ll probably continue to put in about 3/4 hours a day - 20 hours a week tops.

If i can get my earnings up to $20/hour i’ll be sorted

Today’s site is ajaximagehost.com - that’s right, up and running in under 2 hours I’ll be putting it up for sale later on digital point forums.

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t minus 4 days to launch

I was woken up by a taxi call this morning from my girlfriend Some of you might ask why i leave my phone on all night, it’s because;

• it saves time loading up in the morning (i hate waiting on computers/phones to boot up).
• in case of emergencies (it’s always nice for ME to know i can call someone and get them 24/7 (ain’t many people like that), so treat others as you would like to be treated and all that…).
• i don’t have an alarm clock, so a quick press on any button will light up the screen and tell me the time.

I’m usually on US time as i call it - that’s how i live during the week. Up at about 11.30am (6.30am in NYC for example), bed at about 2-3am (9/10pm NYC).

So it’s rare i’m up early. This morning i was up at 8.30am.

Been working since about 9am solid until now (1.30pm). Anyone who works for themselves online will tell you that’s not normal!

I’ve completed terms & conditions, about page, privacy policy, messed around with a blog design, created and sent out 140 emails, made a blog post on the BeerChief blog, been talking with a developer for more work on BeerChief, transferred a sold site (sold guidetowordpress.com) and now i’m writing this blog post.

I’m still no where near finished. There’s several little things still bugging me that i can’t get to do because i’m spending time doing the bigger more important things

Launch day is just 4 days away now. We’ll get nada done Saturday and the best part of Sunday so it really just leaves Monday - day before launch to get things sorted. So the pressure is on… but pressure is good.

I work best under pressure and that can be seen from the above… rallying through work like it’s not there

keeping myself busy

Although i may not be earning much these days, i’m probably working harder than ever before. This blog is looking and performing better than it’s ever done before and i’m determined to grow it further.

BeerChief is of course literally days away from being launched in private BETA mode so there’s an awful lot of work to be done for that. It’s work that most people wouldn’t bother with, but i’m trying to make every single detail ‘perfect’.

Bit by bit i’m getting there. For example the email addresses are using squirrel mail, but i want them linked in to our existing gmail addresses so that any mail we get is forwarded on to our current email accounts. That way we can deal with it instantly.

Again, normally it’s not a problem but because we’re on a dedicated server it makes things more difficult. But i’ve figured out the problem anyway so it’s one less item on my ‘list of things to perfect’.

I also have to get the BeerChief blog back working… i’m trying to move it to a subdomain with little success but i won’t give up. When i do get it up, i also have to customize the design to match our new site design. Then i’ve to install all the latest plugins, bla bla… i haven’t even gotten to content yet. And that’s just the blog, with regards the site itself, i’m also trying to tie up deals with plugin programmers to install additional features on BeerChief.

Content-wise, i have to create a full list of beers with short blurbs and pictures… i also have to update our blog, send out emails… implement a custom 404 page, favicon, send out a newsletter…

Then we have the usual emails back and forth to my Adam (co-founder) plus my daily blogging here at smemon.com.

I still have to create some ads for the sidebar and experiment with a leaderboard at at the top of the page.

It’s not all fun and games you know The rewards, if there are any, will not come today or tomorrow… but when they do come, it’ll all have been worth it