Tons of effort - no success!

[smart]

To all the successful,

I've been building websites for about 3 years. I'm an entrepreneur at heart and I have a passion for technology. I've worked every spare moment I have had building one idea or another. I've taught myself HTML, CSS, and a little PHP. I've learned Magento and built several sites with it. Lately I started a web development company and have several clients. But I can't get it going enough to support me and I'm still working at my boring full time job hoping that someday I can leave it and work online full time.

You are probably wondering why I'm telling you all this. Well, I was talking to my buddy tonight and he said that his friend just quit his job because his side business (affiliate marketing) is making enough money to support him. So I figured that this friend must have been in the business since 97' because starting then was like a guarantee to success online. Anyways, I found out his friend started just a year ago. "What!?" I said. What have I been doing wrong I thought.

So, I need your help. Please share some ideas with me, ideas that I could invest every free hour for the next year in and be able to quit my stupid job and start building an empire online.

[gexla]

Web development (lately?) Affiliate marketing? Sounds like you need some focus, and maybe take some spare moments to relax and re-evaluate. ;)

You can't really compare yourself to your buddy. Maybe you live in Manhattan while your buddy lives with his parents in B.F. Wyoming. Different people have different requirements to "make it."

You also can't compare what you do to your buddy. You both deal with websites but it still might as well be as different as "my construction business hasn't gained any traction but my buddy is doing great with his car dealership." I know a guy who makes thousands / month with Adsense but can't get anywhere with affiliate sales. It's different skill sets.

I also couldn't tell you what to do over the next year anymore than I could tell a high school kid what to major in college or what career to go into. And why would you listen to me?

You say that you are passionate about technology but most of your post is about passion for making money with your business so you can leave your job. That doesn't give us much to work with. And is your job really that bad?

General advice. Narrow your scope and put more concentration into a smaller number of things. Take some time off to enjoy life.

In web development, go more niche so that your skills are more scarce and you can charge more. You don't have as much time as the full timers, so outsource some of your work.

If all else fails, dramatically lower your cost of living by moving to a country where you can live off $500 - $1000 / month of income. ;)

[smart → gexla]

Thanks for the thoughts.

I guess my real question is what niche to pursue? What will be the next big thing? What can I pursue that will be ahead of the curve?

[aresant]

I hate to even tell you this but it's completely realistic to jump into affiliate marketing and make fairly solid money ($10 - 20k a month net).

Thanks largely to Facebook (and other social networks) generating HUGE surpluses of traffic there is a free for all right now in affiliate marketers out-converting each other and sending that traffic on to advertisers.

There is enough traffic and risk tolerance from large publishers so that even averagely talented affiliates can make good money.

You'll find everything you need between digitalpoint.com, shoemoney.com, johnchow.com, nickycakes.com, and warriorforum.com.

The reason I led in by saying I hate to tell you this is because affiliate marketing can be extremely slimy, and will be short lived (in present state) as ad-networks become more efficient @ buying up large bricks of ad dollars eliminating the need for this sub-ecosystem.

But in the meantime, hundreds of millions of dollars are up for grab.

[techiferous]

Find someone whose hair is on fire and sell them water. Make sure you have scarcity power over the water.

[patio11]

A lot of people who hang around affiliate marketers bounce around between 150 different ideas, expect the world handed to them on a silver platter, and then wonder why they aren't successful. This is exploited by the information providers in the space, who like having plentiful newbies interested in Making Money Online (TM) because newbies will buy their ebooks, training programs, etc. Those are mostly scams to separate the desperate and unhappy from their money. People get a high off buying them and come back for more despite their failure to make substantial progress.

You can code. Good. Start making value for people. Charge money for it. There it is, the hidden secret to making money on the Internet.

You say you've worked every spare moment building one idea or another. I know this feeling. My guess is that few of your ideas see it to the "finish line" (let's pick launch and a paying customer, that's a pretty major milestone), and then even fewer see the kind of sustained, focused, gradual improvement that separates a website thrown up in a darkened corner of the Internet and a business. That is improvement in product, improvement in marketing, and improvement in the process of both product development and marketing so you're doing less firing blindly into the Internet and more devoting your limited resources to satisfying the measurable preferences of the people who pay you money.

I would suggest improving your PHP or related web development skills until you can transition from custom development to a product business. For example, right now you have a day job and then afterward spend time chasing down clients, chasing invoices, etc etc etc. (And you're probably undercharging, too.) This wastes huge amounts of your very limited supply of waking hours that are non-spoken for. If you were to instead take those web development skills and make a product, subscription service, or what have you, then the website could handle a portion of marketing and most of fulfillment quite literally while you sleep.

Then you can use your time on scalable activities, like thinking up better ways to market your product, rather than activities which give capped and linear payouts (like doing client work for clients who undervalue you). That also lets you start to accumulate capital in the business.

Capital is really simple: stuff you can keep. A freelance website designer accumulates rather little intellectual capital: you get a portfolio (good!) and client contacts (good!) and a reputation (good!) but you have to spend more time to monetize any of this. Product businesses accumulate more capital better, and faster, and many of the assets they build can monetize waaaaay out of proportion to ongoing time expenditures. That is important because, as it stands currently, if you have a bad week at the day job or life gets in the way, the business stops. Product businesses tolerate those little hiccups better.

[smart → patio11]

Thanks for the advice! Great thoughts and ideas. I do have a couple product businesses and some are growing slowly.

[smart]

Wow, I didn't actually expect anyone to comment on this. This was my first post to hacker news and I really appreciate the time you all have taken to comment.

[maxklein]

Why don't you try the 400 $1 project method (from my blog, link in profile). You're exactly the type of person I think would benefit - struggling to do big stuff all the time. Try the small stuff.

[streety → maxklein]

Actually it's not. At least not directly.

I think this is the post you're referring to: http://blog.cubeofm.com/how-to-become-rich-even-if-nobody-is...

[maxklein → streety]

Oops, fixed that, thanks for pointing it out.

[bradfordw]

So, this makes two pro-affiliate program links today. More to come?

[jdietrich]

Fail more. Fail better.

[ct]

are you sure your buddy's friend is making enough to support himself? have you met him? or is your friend just yanking your chain?

[smart → ct]

I've never met him, but I know he just quit his job