Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

This isn't completely a shameless attempt to take $100 from Nick, since I'm always looking for an idea or twelve; it may have been an incentive, however ... :D

Oprano loves to wax nostalgic about the good old days ... but since the good old days done got up and went, how would you start today? Can someone on a shoestring/no budget start up today?

So ... if you were starting out today, how would you do it? What would you do?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

If I started today, being a history buff I am,
I'd follow the model based on religions.

"In the begining.." the Gods were romping on Olympus,
having parties and thousands of worshippers to be replaced by Christianity in the 3rd Century AD

No more Gods, no more Olympus, but lots of
1) deciples
2) independent "Jimmy Swaggarts"

I'd become a deciple. I'd find who are the biggest players in the industry today and offered my services for FREE, or very low rates just to learn the ropes from the masters.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

someone on a shoestring budget can still make it, but "it" isn't likely going to be 20 million. I see no reason that newbies in this business should go run and hide because the grandfathers are out because they arent making 2 mil/month. just 60 grand/yr made at home is a dream come true for alot of people. as long as they keep away from my shit.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I think how you do it matters more than what you do.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Why do I hear JR's voice in this?
;)

That what he was saying all along!

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Okay, professor :), how would you do it?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

As long as what you do is done successfully (the how), it doesn't matter what you do it in. Yup.

Now give PD the next part. http://oprano.com/msgboard/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

He could be channelling. http://oprano.com/msgboard/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Gather traffic, as much as I could and anyway I could.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I'd figure out what I can do now to start generating revenue and also think of where I wanted to end up. Hopefully they are related but this is not always possible on a shoestring.

I'd cut my personal expenses to a minimum and pay myself the smallest paycheck possible, constantly work on the P&L by cutting expenses as is reasonable, pay a programmer to automate anything that can be automated if it makes fiscal sense and build up enough of a profit to hire good people to handle each aspect of the operation I had in mind as my final goal.

It might be wise to establish some lines of credit which should be used as judiciously as possible - if at all.

In most successful ventures there are so many decisions that have to be made on the fly it is difficult to generalize but sound business principles are sound business principles.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

this one is good :) but since you don´t want the 100....


jjajajajaja

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

May minibon head-butt you repeatedly in the balls for that :yowsa: :mad:

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

hahahahahahaha

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Serge has it spot on from my personal views .. start small and learn whatever you can from an industry mover and shaker .. never stop learning ..

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I'd pretend to be a REALLY hot woman.

All the sad fuck webmasters would give me a link on their sites , and as much advice as I wanted.

:)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

ala Kara.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

LOL , yup :)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Just out of curiosity ... and knowing some folks here and elsewhere ...

a) Would you as a mover and shaker still give advice out? I'd think many wouldn't anymore, and haven't for a long time.

And b) Why would you? What would you get in return?

Again, I think the advice is good. But is the advice feasible???

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I have had a rant on this before....

Remember all the help on CONDOM to newbies?

I gave a lot of help but also received a lot of help in the early days. I mentioned in a different thread a few of the people that took the time to teach me some tricks.

And actually I still learn things from friends everyday.

But as for handing out general info?

Like the old CONDOM workshops?

I think , no.

I toyed with bringing it back on Oprano but decided against it.

When we did it on CONDOM/Netpond , back in the day , we had experts in their own field making bank from it willing to give advice.

Now , no one who REALLY knows the field would give away the info we were giving away then.

So I'd be left with "playas" telling part the story to forwqard there own ends. Or people teaching who had never made a red cent from it. LOL.

And I have shuddered and watched other "experts" shudder over information given that is supposedly the right way to do something which you KNOW , don't think , but KNOW will not work.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Nick, exactly.

In mainstream they now call it "mentoring", "find a mentor" ...

But as you said, the one's who used to give away knowledge in the olden days were then greeted with "ungrateful cunts", and so will no longer do it.

The only ones who do give away info and advice tend to be the self-proclaimed "gurus" who don't know "dick".

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I get asked that by so many people, "How can I get started?". My typical answer is, "Don't!".

I really don't know if I could start from scratch now, and really do anything successfully. There is so much competition in an over-saturated market, that it's hard to get a toehold in this business. I doubt that 1 in a 1000 who started something even made beer money.

But, if I was to start over, I'd research various niches and concentrate on those. Less competition and a more willing-to-buy market.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I've always been quite closed mouthed about what I do and the tricks I know. I've always given very basic advice, but never told all. I never understood why someone would tell their special tricks to newbies, you're just teaching your competition! Look at how many guys that were in the "second wave" took what they learnt, and kicked their "mentors" asses. Just never made sense to me.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Oh I hear ya, Danny!

Well I don't think anyone is stupid to give everything out. (As said, I'm sure right now it would be closer to getting water out of a rock). But if someone gives a person 90%, holds back the important 10% ... then it's up to the student ... if they can't figure out the last part after that long, they don't have it in them.

Still, again as you said, even if they figure out the 10% ... they can surpass the mentor. And end up screwing him/her up good.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I told meat , The "AVS trick" he told everyone and killed it LOL

I also told some people it (heather and others....LOL)and they then ripped into me cause they weren't getting many sales to Adultcheck! ( sigh)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Ah, but as the size of the businesses in the industry grows, isn't it more likely that the wascally wussian was onto something when he said he'd "offer... my services for FREE, or very low rates just to learn the ropes from the masters"? Note that he didn't say he'd stroke egos and/or piss like a maniac (both of which he is a master at, I might add), let alone play damsel in distress, on a BBS.

Isn't the history of MOST businesses the story of how "...the "second wave" took what they learnt, and kicked their "mentors" asses."?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I'd say it's a combination of two factors.

One being what you just said. The second being complacency on the part of the first generation.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Yep! That was a HUGE factor in the demise of many of the original Big Boys. Too many thought they were Internet Gods who could do no wrong, just sat back, and lost it all.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Is this complacency something unique to the Internet (or to porn), or is it just standard business stuff?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

It's a standard business thing - well from what I've seen it is.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

THIS THREAD WINS THE $100 BEST THREAD AWARD.

IT IS ALSO ELIGIBLE FOR THE $250 "SUPER MONDAY" AWARD!!! FOR BEST THREAD :)

Whats your paypal PD :)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

pornodoggy@pornodoggy.net, and "thankyouverymuch"!

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Sooo.. let me get this right. If no one comes up with a better thread by Monday, PD gets another $250?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

its possible...

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Not me...no way, no how...I'd learn how to find the most of the BEST kind of traffic and not go broke paying for BW....

edited to add: although BW is alot cheaper these days....

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

congrats PD! :)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

That's why I'd gather it, traffic is king!

You can throw shit at something all day... most of it will stick. ;)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

you've got mail!




















Its not spam!

:)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Create a free service and support it for 3 months until the hits were good and strong. Then either sell up (probably too short term - not enough profit) or more likely start selling the traffic.

Every day I would make 10 new pages and cross link them all. But also make sure each day was different subject matter. I would put good content on each page and get good search engine traffic.

Basically what I did in the 90s :)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

By good content, then, I'm assuming you mean text.

These ten pages ... this is on unique domains? How many domains are required to sustain a program/project structure like this?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Good content needs good content management software!! :D

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Congratulations PornoDoggy :okthumb:

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Yes, very good descriptive text. That's very important. I'd also only use softcore pics with a few stronger ones thrown in. No point giving away the farm! ;)

I think you need a lot more domains these days than I did. Thankfully they are cheap now. When they were $70+ I built a city of free sites on about two dozen domains with about 10,000 pages spread across them (I wrote CGI software to make clones that were just different enough from each other).

Nowadays Google will see this. So I'd stick to hand-crafting 10 pages per day and then cloning them. That way you have 3,650 good, unique pages to start with - and you may get lucky with traffic off the clones too. I'd probably put 10 pages per domain (with 10 clones of each page). So you'd need 300-400 domains if you were really serious about generating good traffic. But that would only set you back $2-3,000.

Yes, I think that would be my plan if I were to start again...

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I think the biggest question I have atm is - how would something like this translate into mainstream?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

there is one way. Find things you are passionate about and create blogs. Just blog and blog and blog every time you have a thought about one of the subjects. I would say to translate to mainstream, update 10 blogs per day. I don't mean create 10, that would be impossible to keep up with, but update at least 10 - you must have a good number of blogs.

Because you are passionate people will come. And some of the blogs may take off and from those ones you go on to build sites and link to them from the blogs and vice versa. Update these sites all the time and keep that traffic whizzing around.

This is sort of what I plan to do on the subjects of alternate energy, energy saving, self sufficiency, energy investing and so on. All subjects that interest me and are inter-linked.

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

Keep talking, please, Robin! :okthumb:

You are now starring in your very own page in my collection of notes! I'm copy/pasting my heart out and going "hmmmm" a lot. :D

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I've toyed with the idea of starting a blog or twelve - rumor has it I have some interests and opinions on a few topics - but I kind of have to wonder if this is a wave that either close to peaking or may even begin to descend soon.

What besides blogs can be used for this purpose?

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

My blogs always do great for a day or two and then get deleted for being too ummmm spammy , would you believe :)

Re: Okay - If You Started Today, What Would You Do?
 

I know I'm in utter shock! :yowsa: