Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure • Hacker News Board

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#21

Post by sblawrie » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 3:52 PM UTC

I want you to know that this post reminded me of a blog I had set up several years ago and placed some affiliate ads on. The site has been down for years, but I figured I'd log in to the affiliate dashboard to see if any users who signed up through my affiliate links ever spent a significant amount of money.

Turns out, there's a $740 pending balance sitting in there that just came in in the past few months. Sweet! I probably would have forgotten I ever set up an affiliate account if I hadn't read this, so thanks for writing.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#22

Post by Fiahil » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

I have the firm belief that, being continually exposed to sketchy spam 10 years ago, made me extremely averse to advertising, clickbaits and affiliation. Today, I can't imagine the web without an adblocker, and I'm certainly avoiding giving money to a service when I'm prompted to by an ad.

So, I may be wrong, but if the minority of "EnlargeYourMaleParts.com" hadn't polluted my visual field 10 years ago, it would be a lot easier for advertisers to have my contribution today.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#23

Post by e3Yw2HjDrjsRVi » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:01 PM UTC

I have this idea to use technology and excellent customer service to be a sort of agent in the skilled labor market (painting, landscaping, masonry, etc). My wife is fluent in Spanish and English and I am good with web technologies.

I though we could build relationships with some of the lower cost skilled labor providers in our area. They are on craigslist or we know them in other ways. Unfortunately, their English and their customer service skills are often lacking. I've seen where they don't follow through to make the sale, or don't give nice estimates/invoices, etc.

I really just want to be a middle man for this market, using Twilio (IVR), invoicing software, the phone, etc, to give clients a warm-fuzzy. Yeah, my wife or I may have to drive around, and make sure the jobs are getting done well, but I want it to be as low touch as possible.

What forum can I research this on? Any one know or have experience in the same thing?

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#24

Post by Rainymood » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

hias wrote: post #6

I hate these picture gallery clickbaits sites on facebook. If you are visting mobile, almost every "next" click redirects you to some ad site and you "have to go back". And yes, I still click on them because i want to see funny/sexy stuff ;-) I will never understand though how people manage to just "burn" serveral thousands of dollars after they got them. I like to save and don't need any of this funky stuff. Why wou…

>Why would I want to spend 1200$ on some vodka?

Why would you spend 2300$ on some laptop?

Could be value, status, money to splurge? Different people different preferences. To a millionaire there is little difference between a 1200 bottle and a 500 bottle, yet for 'regular people' there is. Perspective ...

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#25

Post by johnward » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #17

I visit forums like Wickedfire from time-to-time. Most of the people there want short-term riches with little to no effort. In fact, the business I started 4 years ago, which is still profitable today, came from an idea I saw in Wickedfire. Only, all of the people in the forum that tried it got banned because they wanted to do it the scammy way..and I built it like a real business and gave people real value (and stil…

To be fair I did point out that blowing the money was an obvious mistake on my part. Those numbers don't include expenses either. Actually most of the money was lost to testing new ideas.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#26

Post by kenrick95 » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

I enjoy reading `The Downside of Becoming “Rich” Suddenly` since it teaches a good life lesson on spending wisely.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#27

Post by timepiece » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #17

I visit forums like Wickedfire from time-to-time. Most of the people there want short-term riches with little to no effort. In fact, the business I started 4 years ago, which is still profitable today, came from an idea I saw in Wickedfire. Only, all of the people in the forum that tried it got banned because they wanted to do it the scammy way..and I built it like a real business and gave people real value (and stil…

Without being judgmental, the author has been under the influence of "Hit n' Run", "Dine n' Dash", "Pump n' Dump" on all his investment decisions and business operation.

Like they say, you can get a man out of the bad neighborhood but you can't get the bad neighborhood out of a man, and this is coming from your typical low middle class guy.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#28

Post by johnward » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

hias wrote: post #6

I hate these picture gallery clickbaits sites on facebook. If you are visting mobile, almost every "next" click redirects you to some ad site and you "have to go back". And yes, I still click on them because i want to see funny/sexy stuff ;-) I will never understand though how people manage to just "burn" serveral thousands of dollars after they got them. I like to save and don't need any of this funky stuff. Why wou…

It's the same way that I can't understand how an NBA player can go bankrupt.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#29

Post by delpino73 » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

Quite interesting to read. The Penguin and Panda updates did a lot of damage to my legitimate business (which was slowly but steadily growing until that point) and many others, so there have been a lot of victims of Google trying to kill off these spammers, collateral damage I guess.

Re: Make Money Online: Documenting 10 Years of Failure

#30

Post by softdev12 » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 4:08 PM UTC

I enjoyed reading this because it's not something you usually see publicized. And as a single data point leads me to believe that there are some people really doing well with these sort of tactics - just not talking about. It's like the blackjack card counters in 1980's and 90's. They were successfully employing a system to pull money from casinos - but weren't talking about it. It was only when the MIT Team started publicly talking about the strategy, that it made it into the open. And that was at the time that the casinos made it not a really viable strategy.

So it seems likely that there are successful strategies for using these affiliate tactics for profit. I know that Wired magazine profiles a few of these people every once in a while. There was a Canadian entrepreneur who was big into the diet pill scheme and made millions (he, too, would fly down to Vegas with friends). And here is a link to another scheme that used scareware:

http://www.wired.com/2011/09/mf_scareware/