I can't stop making new sites? Not focusing enough?

[Biggy]

I've got 4 sites. 3 of them work good. Third one i bought and i didnt work on it that much.

Here's the question:

1) When to start a new site?
2) i really like building sites from ground up, but i have hard time focusing.
3) I want also go to digital product / ecommerce. That was my goal last year to go and I still didnt go. I have fear of losing.

I know that digital product / ecommerce have most potebtial for profit. My good friend is making 5k$ a month with zero advertising.

I got used so much to this kind of business its hard for ne to try something new. Like I got stuck.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Hey. So, I understand where you're at. It's fun to build a site and it is scary to actually invest your time, energy, love, and patience on one and only one site but that's what you have to do if you want your business to succeed.

Let me re-phrase what you posted as if you were a founder at a startup and this was the startup world.

"Hey, I have 4 startups right now and I'm really excited about the initial idea to early growth phase of companies. 3 of my startups are making so-so money and I want to start a 4th startup. Should I?"

Duh, the answer is obvious. No, work more on your 3 startups. Find one that you can scale and grow into a cash cow. You're still at tinker phase and haven't learned how to grow your website into a business and your business into a small/medium enterprise (which is defined as under 200 employees).

You have a long ways to go my friend.

 

[Biggy]

Hey. So, I understand where you're at. It's fun to build a site and it is scary to actually invest your time, energy, love, and patience on one and only one site but that's what you have to do if you want your business to succeed.

Let me re-phrase what you posted as if you were a founder at a startup and this was the startup world.

"Hey, I have 4 startups right now and I'm really excited about the initial idea to early growth phase of companies. 3 of my startups are making so-so money and I want to start a 4th startup. Should I?"

Duh, the answer is obvious. No, work more on your 3 startups. Find one that you can scale and grow into a cash cow. You're still at tinker phase and haven't learned how to grow your website into a business and your business into a small/medium enterprise (which is defined as under 200 employees).

You have a long ways to go my friend.

When is big enough site to say. Ok, its time for a sale?

One of sites is making most, but traffic is not moving up. That's why I was thinking to flip it. It's my main, big site.Even after ncreasing articles

The second one traffic is going up, but the sales are slowly increasing. Long term this site may earn far better. I would say this site have most potential to get to 20-40k$ a month.

3rd quite small and not that interested in niche. RPMs are ok, but nothing wow.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

When is big enough site to say. Ok, its time for a sale?

One of sites is making most, but traffic is not moving up. That's why I was thinking to flip it. It's my main, big site.Even after ncreasing articles

The second one traffic is going up, but the sales are slowly increasing. Long term this site may earn far better. I would say this site have most potential to get to 20-40k$ a month.

3rd quite small and not that interested in niche. RPMs are ok, but nothing wow.

I wouldn't view it like that and I've sold sites. I'd only sell a site if I had a use for the capital (cash) and needed the cash. For example, if I was given the opportunity to invest into a shopping mall and needed $1,000,000 to invest into the shopping mall, where I can expect to earn a 8% return at a VERY stable rate over the years and I can expect people to shop there for 50 years, yeah, I'll cash out of a website, sell it, exit, and take the proceed to invest in a shopping mall. Makes total sense. $1,000,000 in capital in a website might tank in 10 years as that's a long time on the Internet. $1,000,000 in capital in a shopping mall that'll serve the suburb for 50 years and earn 8% is totally safer and the $1,000,000 in shares will never go to $0, unless some shit-hit-the-fan scenario happens like the city turns is Detroit, Michigan.

So, no, I wouldn't sell, just because I can't grow revenue any more. If it really did plateau, keep on holding it and add new content to keep it fresh and keep that cashflow coming in! You're winning! If it takes 4 hours a month to run this business, KEEP IT! Let's say it makes $5,000/month in profits. That's the same thing as owning 6 1 bedroom 1,000 sq ft (100sq m) apartments in a semi-major metropolitan area. Good job. Keep the cash flow. More cash flow is always better. Do not sell unless you have a need for the capital. You spend however many years to build this site. If the multiplier is 36x, you cashing out is you getting 3 years of cashflow upfront. However, if you maintain the site, I bet you that you can keep it running for much longer than 3 years. Maintain it instead. It's a smarter move.

As for what to do when a site plateaus, it's pretty simple. You either get more visitors, get more advertisers (or products to sell), or you vertically integrate or you maintain the site to reap the cash-flow. Vertically integrate means you add another step of the supply chain to your business. Let's say your site is a weight loss blog and you're currently monetised by ads. Advertisers are selling weight loss pills. You can vertically integrate by offering your own supplements. Your profit margin there would be much higher and you'll get more of the weight loss market now. It went from 1% for an ad that lead to a sale on a different site to 20-30% for a drop shipped product.

Also, I know this forum is geared towards solo-entrepreneurs, but you can also hire people to expand the site too, for roles you don't know. This is how startups do it. Cofounders hire experts who are hungry and eager to do something and the cofounders can learn from the experts, who they hired. You have to figure out who knows their shit and what to do when you interview them. It's also you losing control of the business and relying on others, but this is how real business operate. Do you have enough cash flow to hire out other roles? Maybe you can hire a business development guy to generate B2B signups. That is a skill in it own and it takes 6-7 touch points and about 3-6 months to sign a business client. But if you do, the value of the client is five or six figures. His job description can just be "find and sign up B2B clients" and that's his performance review and work experience. You'll be adding human capital (the knowledge and expertise that your company has) when you hire the new person.

Let me know what you plan on doing. It's good to discuss it and plan your work before you work. A person without a plan and a goal is like a ship without a captain and a port of call. It is sure to maroon on a desolate island. Plan first and you are sure to succeed.

 

[Biggy]

I wouldn't view it like that and I've sold sites. I'd only sell a site if I had a use for the capital (cash) and needed the cash. For example, if I was given the opportunity to invest into a shopping mall and needed $1,000,000 to invest into the shopping mall, where I can expect to earn a 8% return at a VERY stable rate over the years and I can expect people to shop there for 50 years, yeah, I'll cash out of a website, sell it, exit, and take the proceed to invest in a shopping mall. Makes total sense. $1,000,000 in capital in a website might tank in 10 years as that's a long time on the Internet. $1,000,000 in capital in a shopping mall that'll serve the suburb for 50 years and earn 8% is totally safer and the $1,000,000 in shares will never go to $0, unless some shit-hit-the-fan scenario happens like the city turns is Detroit, Michigan.

So, no, I wouldn't sell, just because I can't grow revenue any more. If it really did plateau, keep on holding it and add new content to keep it fresh and keep that cashflow coming in! You're winning! If it takes 4 hours a month to run this business, KEEP IT! Let's say it makes $5,000/month in profits. That's the same thing as owning 6 1 bedroom 1,000 sq ft (100sq m) apartments in a semi-major metropolitan area. Good job. Keep the cash flow. More cash flow is always better. Do not sell unless you have a need for the capital. You spend however many years to build this site. If the multiplier is 36x, you cashing out is you getting 3 years of cashflow upfront. However, if you maintain the site, I bet you that you can keep it running for much longer than 3 years. Maintain it instead. It's a smarter move.

As for what to do when a site plateaus, it's pretty simple. You either get more visitors, get more advertisers (or products to sell), or you vertically integrate or you maintain the site to reap the cash-flow. Vertically integrate means you add another step of the supply chain to your business. Let's say your site is a weight loss blog and you're currently monetised by ads. Advertisers are selling weight loss pills. You can vertically integrate by offering your own supplements. Your profit margin there would be much higher and you'll get more of the weight loss market now. It went from 1% for an ad that lead to a sale on a different site to 20-30% for a drop shipped product.

Also, I know this forum is geared towards solo-entrepreneurs, but you can also hire people to expand the site too, for roles you don't know. This is how startups do it. Cofounders hire experts who are hungry and eager to do something and the cofounders can learn from the experts, who they hired. You have to figure out who knows their shit and what to do when you interview them. It's also you losing control of the business and relying on others, but this is how real business operate. Do you have enough cash flow to hire out other roles? Maybe you can hire a business development guy to generate B2B signups. That is a skill in it own and it takes 6-7 touch points and about 3-6 months to sign a business client. But if you do, the value of the client is five or six figures. His job description can just be "find and sign up B2B clients" and that's his performance review and work experience. You'll be adding human capital (the knowledge and expertise that your company has) when you hire the new person.

Let me know what you plan on doing. It's good to discuss it and plan your work before you work. A person without a plan and a goal is like a ship without a captain and a port of call. It is sure to maroon on a desolate island. Plan first and you are sure to succeed.

Thanks for this. I don't think it really hit plateu just competitors are outranking me because they are in markets for more than like 5 years in market (Higher pa/da)

That's really great option I'm also thinking to add few extra categories, hire few more workers. I already increased amount, but traffic for some reason didn't get up at least now is stable. We were also hit with Google update for around 25%.

1. Vertical move
2. Affiliate testing different products
3. Expanding team

 

[Ryuzaki]

1) When to start a new site?

Have you ever seen this comic strip?

So many of us are like this. I used to do it big time, to the point where to try to justify it I once said I was going to build 30 micro-niche sites (and I did). Simply to put a framework around it and make the non-discipline make some kind of sense. In the end, it ended like it should have, pretty much in a failure.

Projects, in my opinion, first reach a state of completion and then go into maintenance mode. You shouldn't start a new project until the previous ones are complete and in maintenance mode.

When is big enough site to say. Ok, its time for a sale?

There's all kinds of logical answers to this question. You could write a full business book on the topic. But I think it's a fairly simple answer. The project either meets the income goals you set for it where you pre-decided that this is when you'd sell it, or you re-evaluated things along the way and it has now either met the new income goals. Only you know the business inside and out.

There's no universal answer that can be given. You set your own goals and decide if they're met or not. There's too many variables otherwise for any outsider to give you a reasonable opinion.

2) i really like building sites from ground up, but i have hard time focusing.

You're one step ahead of all of my buddies who have day jobs and dream of being entrepreneurs. They build projects in their minds and then get all excited and then activate the pressure release valve by talking about it to me. Then they do NOTHING.

The next step is to get excited about a new project and take action only while it's exciting and new. The possibilities are wide open and it's fun. Then it gets down to the nitty gritty and the high wears off. It's either time to buckle down and suffer through the pain or.... off to the next exciting new project!

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or act like I can read your mind. It's just what I've seen others do.

Most people like to get high off of the novelty and ideas but don't want to actually make any sacrifices. I don't think that's you. Any time I read "I have a hard time focusing", what I feel like I'm reading is "I lack discipline." Motivation is all good, it's fun. But when it goes away, what remains to get you through the slog? Either you have discipline or you don't.

Some people struggle with focus way more than others. But we all have our own cross to bear. Either we muster up the discipline to make it happen, or we allow ourselves to be distracted by the next shiny nickel.

 

[Jesse]

I intend to make a much longer, in-depth post about this in the future, but I'll offer an idea here, and if it's useful for you, then feel free to add it to your repertoire. If not, then no big deal.

One of the mechanisms of functional "discipline" is making a distinction between what you're doing and how you're doing it. Very often, the connotation of "discipline" is to just do something you don't enjoy over and over in spite of not enjoying it, but I think that's mistaken. I think a better approach is to figure out how to do the task(s) in a way that you do enjoy, regardless of what those tasks are and regardless of how you stylize the process.

A critical part of this idea is having a focus on the performance of the task itself (ie: a focus on the actual, individual, concrete movements you're making as you act) instead of the abstract purpose or long-term goal of the task. To put it another way, "discipline" can be facilitated by doing the task in a way that you enjoy doing it even if it wasn't toward the larger goal, even if the larger goal didn't exist.

However, we're often plagued by feelings of how we are "supposed" to do a task and what we are "supposed" to be focused on during that task. Along these lines, we feel pressured to perform the tasks in ways that meet these nebulous outside requirements that we don't always realize are largely arbitrary and irrelevant. Moreover, when under this pressure, we can take just about any task and turn it into something we don't enjoy because we are no longer doing it in a way that we're able to enjoy in the first place.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

I intend to make a much longer, in-depth post about this in the future, but I'll offer an idea here, and if it's useful for you, then feel free to add it to your repertoire. If not, then no big deal.

One of the mechanisms of functional "discipline" is making a distinction between what you're doing and how you're doing it. Very often, the connotation of "discipline" is to just do something you don't enjoy over and over in spite of not enjoying it, but I think that's mistaken. I think a better approach is to figure out how to do the task(s) in a way that you do enjoy, regardless of what those tasks are and regardless of how you stylize the process.

A critical part of this idea is having a focus on the performance of the task itself (ie: a focus on the actual, individual, concrete movements you're making as you act) instead of the abstract purpose or long-term goal of the task. To put it another way, "discipline" can be facilitated by doing the task in a way that you enjoy doing it even if it wasn't toward the larger goal, even if the larger goal didn't exist.

However, we're often plagued by feelings of how we are "supposed" to do a task and what we are "supposed" to be focused on during that task. Along these lines, we feel pressured to perform the tasks in ways that meet these nebulous outside requirements that we don't always realize are largely arbitrary and irrelevant. Moreover, when under this pressure, we can take just about any task and turn it into something we don't enjoy because we are no longer doing it in a way that we're able to enjoy in the first place.

I have opinions on this. So, my family is Asian and, like Jackie Chan in that interview, when I was a kid, I was forced to do weird ass shit or else I'd be hit. If you didn't watch the video, in it, Jonathan Ross asks Jackie about his childhood training at the Peking Opera School from when he was 6 until he was 16. He had to wake up at 5:30am every day and do stuff such as run around for an hour while remaining at the same height or carry water without dropping water or freezing in a pose for 20 minutes at a time. If he messed up, he'd get whipped. For me, I was told to write cursive based upon a printed font as an example for an hour a day, play sax phone for an hour a day, and read a book for an hour a day. The cursive was the worst, as it was totally pointless. I hated it and resented my parents for it for years afterwards. And it was horrible. For me, it only lasted for 2 years, unlike Jackie's 10 years.

For me, during that time and afterwards, I was very disciplined and did stuff out of fear. I was afraid I'll go broke. Or I was afraid I'll get hit. Or I was afraid God would kill me. The amount of fear I had walking around was incredible. But it did help me focus a lot and I was able to do stuff that other kids my age were unable to, such as focus on a new business for months at a time, working into the wee hours of the morning on my own. That was when I was in college, and I was afraid of being hit for not working hard enough, even thought it was 8 years after that experience.

Now that I've proven my tormentors wrong and have achieved some success, I found, like you, that discipline isn't forcing yourself to do something. It is doing something for the sake of doing it. I found out that I enjoy and like marketing and SEO. I'm interested in consumer psychology and that was what I focused in business school. I'm interested in money and economics. I enjoy investing and research.

I'm actually grateful that I get to keep on doing what I love, without the fear of failure tormenting me. If I ever find the guy who canned me for 2 years when I was 11 to 13, I'd punch him but then I'll probably kiss him and give him some gunny dicks. He was terrible and it was horrible and I made something good out of it. I'm actually a great person, if I can say so myself. Others would have been too traumatised by it to make something good out of themselves afterwards.

What I learned is that I (and most other people) need more self-compassion. What one is "supposed" to do is something that stems from your critical self. It's easy to get carried away with that. Now I focus more on "good enough" or "I'm satisfied" than what I ought to do or should do or what is "the best". I'm much happier now.

 

[JOoa0ky]

I believe Steve Jobs put it best:

 

[njbox]

Have you ever seen this comic strip?

So many of us are like this. I used to do it big time, to the point where to try to justify it I once said I was going to build 30 micro-niche sites (and I did). Simply to put a framework around it and make the non-discipline make some kind of sense. In the end, it ended like it should have, pretty much in a failure.

Projects, in my opinion, first reach a state of completion and then go into maintenance mode. You shouldn't start a new project until the previous ones are complete and in maintenance mode.


There's all kinds of logical answers to this question. You could write a full business book on the topic. But I think it's a fairly simple answer. The project either meets the income goals you set for it where you pre-decided that this is when you'd sell it, or you re-evaluated things along the way and it has now either met the new income goals. Only you know the business inside and out.

There's no universal answer that can be given. You set your own goals and decide if they're met or not. There's too many variables otherwise for any outsider to give you a reasonable opinion.


You're one step ahead of all of my buddies who have day jobs and dream of being entrepreneurs. They build projects in their minds and then get all excited and then activate the pressure release valve by talking about it to me. Then they do NOTHING.

The next step is to get excited about a new project and take action only while it's exciting and new. The possibilities are wide open and it's fun. Then it gets down to the nitty gritty and the high wears off. It's either time to buckle down and suffer through the pain or.... off to the next exciting new project!

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or act like I can read your mind. It's just what I've seen others do.

Most people like to get high off of the novelty and ideas but don't want to actually make any sacrifices. I don't think that's you. Any time I read "I have a hard time focusing", what I feel like I'm reading is "I lack discipline." Motivation is all good, it's fun. But when it goes away, what remains to get you through the slog? Either you have discipline or you don't.

Some people struggle with focus way more than others. But we all have our own cross to bear. Either we muster up the discipline to make it happen, or we allow ourselves to be distracted by the next shiny nickel.

I used to think I was the only one building all these products and not going deep. After looking at the comic strip, it totally makes sense

Over the past several years
1 Built a dashboard business intelligence tool /SAAS
2. Built a wireframe/mockup SAAS
3. Built several WP plugins
I would build them and post it on few sites and be done with it. And then I would be working on the next product/tool/idea/website etc.

Now it is going to be different, I have committed myself to change this pattern.

 

[Politico]

I'm the same way - I have a total lack of discipline and focus and jump from idea to idea, and then return to the original, etc.

ADHD probably.

But I think that's why a lot of successful startups and businesses are partnerships between the creators and the marketers. The creators want to create/innovate/invent and so they need the more disciplined "business people" who can operationalize/systematize everything, get organized, focused and follow through to build "the machine" around "the creation."

Dunno. Just thinking out loud.

 

[Biggy]

So far I'm a bit better with this. Currently working on only 1 project. That's more than enough and that comes with less stress.

 

[CCarter]

The problem seems that you guys are looking for quick wins, because it's the Internet so people are used to hearing about quick wins. But the thing is - with a real business it takes long-term thinking and there's no quick wins like that.

The internet is too easy. You throw up a website, do some posts within the industry and move on if no fish bit in 1 or 2 weeks/months. There is no long term investment. No grit.

You would never do that with a brick and mortar which you have go get real investment or put up your house to get going. Get employees, get a location, get inventory, there is a lot of initial start-up costs, so you have to be a bit more cautious and willing to put in months and years until the pay off.

The instant gratification of the internet kills the grit of the businessman, which is needed for success.

You guys need to cleanse yourselves. I started by deleting domains or at least removing the auto-renew on "idea projects". If it was a great idea it would be itching you constantly, not on some backburner.

I remember at one time I had over 1000 domains. Now I am down to less than a dozen, sans legacy stuff to stop domain squatters from pillaging my past.

Clean the plate, less clutter will allow great ideas to grow. As you are going through your old domains, there might be one that gives you that itch that you MUST scratch. It's what Mako is for me. Now I am all in.