Re:Patrick McKenzie (patio11) interviewed for an hour on SEO...
by patio11 on Tuesday April 06, 2010 @11:38AM
(#1244822)
losing money early-on
The business put more money in my pocket than it took out since, hmm, about 30 days after I threw the doors open. (I think I know how you came to this misconception, so sorry for the unclear phrasing in the interview: I had a few hundred a month in sales from SEO/etc when I was burning $1 a day trying to figure out how AdWords worked.)
Did you sometimes take a break from the Bingo Card Creator to try other things?
I put it on the backburner to focus on either the day job or on living rather frequently.
As to the frame of mind, I always say that business is a lot like WoW. People express huge skepticism that you could play WoW for 30 solid days of your life and not feel bored out of your mind... but you don't get 30 days of /played all at once. You smash a goblin here and complete a quest there and organize a raid for your next weekend and maybe think about offing that dragon eventually and then collect some mushrooms and kill the dragon and then... whoa, 30 days.
I passed the last four years on a thousand and one intellectually engrossing mini-projects. They never got to the point where they'd lose my interest -- after all, if I just hold out until Saturday, I'll have A/B test results to look at. If I just put in another hour, I'll have a new feature. If I just write this email, I'll have a happy customer and maybe get another postcard for my fridge. etc, etc.
The business put more money in my pocket than it took out since, hmm, about 30 days after I threw the doors open. (I think I know how you came to this misconception, so sorry for the unclear phrasing in the interview: I had a few hundred a month in sales from SEO/etc when I was burning $1 a day trying to figure out how AdWords worked.)
Did you sometimes take a break from the Bingo Card Creator to try other things?
I put it on the backburner to focus on either the day job or on living rather frequently.
As to the frame of mind, I always say that business is a lot like WoW. People express huge skepticism that you could play WoW for 30 solid days of your life and not feel bored out of your mind... but you don't get 30 days of /played all at once. You smash a goblin here and complete a quest there and organize a raid for your next weekend and maybe think about offing that dragon eventually and then collect some mushrooms and kill the dragon and then... whoa, 30 days.
I passed the last four years on a thousand and one intellectually engrossing mini-projects. They never got to the point where they'd lose my interest -- after all, if I just hold out until Saturday, I'll have A/B test results to look at. If I just put in another hour, I'll have a new feature. If I just write this email, I'll have a happy customer and maybe get another postcard for my fridge. etc, etc.
The loot is a bit better than WoW's, too.