Blogging is a Lot Harder than it Looks + Google Analytics

Blogging turns out to be a lot harder than it looks.  Each time I sit down to write a post I have a great writing idea that I think people would be interested in reading.  But, the execution so far has fallen flat and the idea only gets half expressed.  Maybe it is just the amount of time that I can actually put into it...

One of the reasons I am doing this blog is to get into the habit of blogging and learning about the tools that are used to understand and drive traffic.  I will write a more detailed post on this later, but an amazing tool that I am using is Google Analytics.  This tool presents all the data about the users of your sites (how many are unique, how long they stay, where they come from,  etc).

Google Analytics has this great feature that overlays an image of your site with the % of times people clicked on each link.  This is a great way to listen to your users - they tell you by clicking what they want. 

What I found is by far the most clicked link on this blog at the very bottom where there is a list of links to other independent business sites (26%).  The second most clicked thing was something like 10%.  So, what I am going to try next is to add to this list resources that I think are valuable and see if these component still gets as much attention.  I'm also thinking of a way to make that component more visible so that maybe it will draw the attention of the majority of users who simply click away from this site after being referred from StumbleUpon or Digg.

When Do You Know Its Time to Leave Your Job for Your Business?

Anyone who has thought about starting a new company has had to wrestle with the idea that their life was going to change drastically as a result.  Most people have grown comfortable in the typical 9-5 workweek that ensures a steady cash-flow and routine of a corporate safety net.

For a time, people already in the workforce may be able to run their side business as a hobby but in order to fully develop an idea most people know that they need to focus as much time on it as they can.

Lately, I have gotten to this point but frankly I didn't really know what to do.

Should I just get up and leave my job, burn my bridges and jump into my new life as many authors suggest?

Should I try and sneak my company development into my current work schedule?

Should I just drop my business?

For the truly courageous entrepreneur the best move indeed may be to simply pack up and leave and burn all your bridges.  This ensures that you will be as motivated as you can to make it work.  Honestly, especially for those of us who have enough money to support ourselves for a year this is probably the best way to go.

At this point in my life I could not stomach the first option.

A friend recently pointed out that other startups have been successful even though they spent their first year as a side project of people who had full time jobs.  37signals is the name of the company and the advice is start small and develop a cash-flow that can be built on.  Here is a link to their blog post on this.

These two approaches seem to represent extreme ends of the spectrum.  I for one did not want to burn my bridges, but I do want to move things along more quickly than I could while working at my job.  Also, my better half is not willing to drop out of paying bills completely...

So, what I am trying to do is to negotiate working only 50% with my current employer.  They are not really happy with this, but they certainly think its a better deal than 0% time.  This is my compromise and I believe it is enough for me to get my business moving over the next year.

Maybe this is something that you could try before one of the two extremes above.

To answer the question posed by this article, you know you are ready to do something drastic when you have a burning desire to start.  If you are thinking about your business idea all the time and truly want it then the time is going to come when you are going to have to start pushing the boundaries of what you are comfortable with.

The key is to come up with a plan that will work for your life and then follow it through.

(Time = Money) is a Bad Idea!

Last week, I heard this really simple but counterintuitive idea from the two guys who do the Internet Business Mastery podcast. They basically said that you have to stop thinking of time as being equal to money. That is, most people think that if they work longer hours at something that they will get paid more.  I know that when I think of how to earn more money I immediately think of consulting.

Their point was really that you need to find a way to bring in cash-flow that doesn't require your constant attention.  The way to do this is through automation.  Let's take this example: the problem you are solving is teaching people how to do bicycle maintenance.  One way to do this is to hire yourself out as a consultant; if you valued your time at $50 / hr you could probably replace the income from your present job if you worked 40 hrs/week.

This model is good, but there is a another way: if you were able to create a video or e-book that really showed people how to do this and priced that at $50 then you would be solving the same problem.  Your customers would be getting a better deal because a one time cost of $50 is much less than a few hours of $50/hr consulting fees.  You would be getting a better deal because your product will be making money for you while freeing you to do other things.

Essentially, this is the difference between owning a business and a  business owning you.  Under the second model, you will be earning income long after you have lost interesting in being a bicycle tutor.

Who am I and what is this blog about anyway ???

Right now I work for a medium sized company where I essentially do system analysis and programming for teams of psychological researchers. Before this, I went to school for psychology and spent some time in the mental health field. I love my work and the company I work for is a decent place. But, I don't really feel satisfied with just being an employee and lately I have been thinking of trying different things out.

The first thing I tried was to go back to school and get a master's degree. I did this, but what that really did was just give me another bullet point on my resume. New degrees don't really change things - they just open up new job titles. I also came to realize that "moving up" in the corporate world really means becoming a manager, then a director, and so on.

The thing that really changed my attitude and opened up a world of possibilities was the Apple announcement that software developers would be able to sell their applications for the iPhone through an iTunes-like "AppStore". At the time, the implications seemed to be that one developer, or small teams of developers, could make a business out of something they loved to do.

I am very excited about the AppStore, however the real implication of the announcement for me is that I have started to investigate the world of internet business. There are people who have made livings by simply writing blogs, selling their products on eBay, developing software for the Mac and so on. The interesting thing is that people have managed to simply make modest livings by focusing on their particular niche.

So, now let me bring this post back around to the question of "what is this blog about". As I have been listening to podcasts and generally educating myself I realized that this path I was going down is very risky and if I wrote about it honestly then the possibility exists for some high drama. To be honest, from my perspective this world of internet business seems a little pipe dreamy. My plan is to follow this pipe dream and this blog will document the ultimate success or failure of this adventure.