How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#171

Post by Alex3917 » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 4:00 AM UTC

il wrote: post #119

jacquesm wrote: post #79

Interesting, I've been doing just that for the last couple of years. It's been a mix of partial successes and total failures, mostly failures. I didn't want to go the 'mfa' route for obvious reasons, so I try to make these sites in to something that actually is useful, and that have a sense of community about them. Here is a breakdown of what you can make this way in a month based on adsense alone after several years…

I agree completely, $1 a day times 400 sites is simply not feasible. This article is terrible advice, the kind that will probably lead you to failure. I have a fairly successful affiliate marketing business (I make more than I would if I had a day job), and it seems like every day I talk to people who are taking this approach and making $1-$2 a day. The article's logic is flawed- if it were that easy to make projects…

"Every millionaire Internet marketer I've ever talked to has succeeded by focusing on a single market/product"

My freshman year of college our rowing coach took us out to the salmon dam on the edge of the lake. He turned to the boat and asked, "How many times do you guys think the salmon try to jump over the dam before they give up?" I can't remember everyone's guesses, but the punchline was basically "They keep trying until either they make it or they fucking die."

This seems to be the ideal strategy for startups. The person who wins isn't the one with the biggest shovel or the one who digs the most holes, it's the person with enough discipline to keep digging in one place with the shovel they have.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#172

Post by iworkforthem » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 4:14 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #79

Interesting, I've been doing just that for the last couple of years. It's been a mix of partial successes and total failures, mostly failures. I didn't want to go the 'mfa' route for obvious reasons, so I try to make these sites in to something that actually is useful, and that have a sense of community about them. Here is a breakdown of what you can make this way in a month based on adsense alone after several years…

Pageviews vs earnings ratio seems a bit too low.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#173

Post by timtrueman » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 6:02 AM UTC

This advice feels wrong but it reminds of what Jason Fried said at this year's startup school, which I feel is better advice anyways. [I'm probably butchering it but one of the gists of it was] Just get started and practice making money.

http://www.justin.tv/clip/b897875d2e8cd907

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#174

Post by geeko » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 6:53 AM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #143

sabat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your article: I once made a video hosting website and put 30 ninja videos on it. Adsense money was about $1 a day. From your post above: I don't really know how ads work, so I've never actually used them. Huh? Which one is true?

Use as in optimised for them and actually made an effort to learn how to make things work with adsense. What I did on the video site was embed the code google gave and that's it. That does not mean I know anything about adsense.

Are you still making 1$ off your site today?

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#175

Post by jacoblyles » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 7:41 AM UTC

Psyonic wrote: post #109

acon wrote: post #67

This sort of reminds me of the old pottery story, where they had one group making which was graded on how many pots they made and another one which was only graded on their best pot. Of course the group which was graded on quantity made better pots in the end. I really think that by iterating really quickly you will become good faster than if you try to make the perfect thing right away. So don't be paralyzed by tryi…

Sounds like the proverb taught to GO beginners: "Lose Your First 100 Games As Quickly As Possible"

Also works great for Chess. But horrible for Boxing.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#176

Post by thibaut_barrere » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 7:47 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #149

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those I know revolve around affiliation, alternate search engines, porn/erotic stuff, niche technological forums and such topics :) Not by him but in the same kind of idea, here's an example: http://fastpowertools.com/ A while back I know the owner of this site did a few hundreds $ per month. It was really an eye-opener to me :) Of course this requires SEO skills to earn more than a few bucks, that need to be learn o…

What I wouldn't give for a way to filter all sites like that from search engine results ;)

I would pay for that as well :)

Do you know of projects that achieve that correctly ?

I know about custom google search engines with all the big retail stores removed, for instance.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#177

Post by nitrogen » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 7:58 AM UTC

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #75

tjogin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be really interesting if you could describe some of these projects briefly.

Those I know revolve around affiliation, alternate search engines, porn/erotic stuff, niche technological forums and such topics :) Not by him but in the same kind of idea, here's an example: http://fastpowertools.com/ A while back I know the owner of this site did a few hundreds $ per month. It was really an eye-opener to me :) Of course this requires SEO skills to earn more than a few bucks, that need to be learn o…

Is there a generic webapp (something like OSCommerce) that can automatically create an affiliate store like the one you linked when supplied with a list of item names or URLs?

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#178

Post by thibaut_barrere » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 8:27 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #177

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those I know revolve around affiliation, alternate search engines, porn/erotic stuff, niche technological forums and such topics :) Not by him but in the same kind of idea, here's an example: http://fastpowertools.com/ A while back I know the owner of this site did a few hundreds $ per month. It was really an eye-opener to me :) Of course this requires SEO skills to earn more than a few bucks, that need to be learn o…

Is there a generic webapp (something like OSCommerce) that can automatically create an affiliate store like the one you linked when supplied with a list of item names or URLs?

Search for "affiliate store script" and I think you should find some.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#179

Post by VladimirGolovin » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 8:28 AM UTC

To borrow Warren Buffet's term, the in-crowd are the winners of the Ovarian Lottery, and the normals (with me among them) are the losers.

"I’ve had it so good in this world, you know. The odds were fifty-to-one against me born in the United States in 1930. I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different.

Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic. And the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes. What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one this is born in the United States?” It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities. The people who say, “I did it all myself,” and think of themselves as Horatio Alger – believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh. That’s the Ovarian Lottery."

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#180

Post by robryan » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 8:58 AM UTC

thesethings wrote: post #51

javery wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the people who created the owl videos are providing value, youtube is providing value by making them available, the owl site is just leaching off of that to make a buck.

I really disagree. Some call it "aggregation," but I'm starting to call this layer "discovery." This very site, Hacker News, is a filter that is mere pointer to content elsewhere. (There are occasional "Ask HN," but most every post posts elsewhere). Most sites and tools I use every day are filtering tools. Techmeme is another great example. It is true that a purely automated owl video scraper wouldn't be as good and…

Aggregation itself doesn't necessarily create value, but depending on what is done with the aggregation can create much value.

Google news is a good example, no one could really say that having all that article discovery and grouping was providing no value. Google scholar provides no content by itself but is very useful.