There is a really interesting thread going on over at the Coaching with Josh forum. It was started with a great and simple question -
How did you earn your first money online?
How long did it take?
What would you have done otherwise?
Well okay that’s three questions. But it was really great to hear everyone’s stories of their beginning. We all remember our first penny or dollar ever made online… If you have yet to make your first penny, trust me, you will remember that day!
This got me to thinking about my first money I made online. It was $.32 and I was jumping up and down happy!
A good few years ago I started an free web based email site called WickedMail.com. This was way before Google, way before Paypal… about the time Yahoo! and Hotmail were in their hay day and were duking it out for email subs. I had an account on Yahoo! and really couldn’t stand the interface. Yeah, it was functional and free, but the Martha Stewart pastel colors were enough to drive be creatively numb.
When I was younger I was in a metal band in Austin called Wicked Gypsy. I always liked things a little on the radical side.. I fealt like the web based email environmnet needed some excitment. There needed to be a more fun, cool web based email site… there needed to be a site that would throw out the pastels and add some fire and flames to the design, and how about some skulls too for good measure. Well of course none of that existed. So I thought, well then why not creat one! The true rocker in me came out and Wicked Mail was born.
I did a little research and found that there were a lot of open source web email applications to choose from where I could create something cool like this. There were also a few commercial applications too. I quickly found one that fit the bill, written in php and not too terribly tough to configure. I got it installed and quickly redisgned it. Black background, purple and grean text, flames and skulls. It was great. At least I thought so…. and I guess other folks liked it too, I quickly built up a nice little database of subscribers.
So my next goal was to create a way to start charging people. I need to capitalize on this and make some money. I needed a way to set a flag in the database for those that paid and those that didnt. I had no idea how to do that! I also needed a way to process credit cards! I had no idea how to do that either! You see there wasnt any paypal back then. I was stuck at a point where I could either hire a developer and database admin to help me get things setup, or just let it ride and try to fumble through the code myself. I didnt have any money so I just fumbled away at things.
It didnt take much time after that when I soon learned that local residential cable companies don’t like you running full blown mail servers from your house. Cox cable realized what I was doing, saw a huge amount of transmit traffic coming from my house, shut off my Internet connection and told me I could never get internet access from them again! “Geeze kind a touchy about it they were”
It was all fun and exciting look back on it. At the time I felt beaten and like I had failed.
If I could have done things differently - I would have taken the gamble and hire that developer and dba. I would have held on to those subscribers.
Oh and I almost forgot. My first money I made online? It was right at the peak of things, I got a check in the mail for $.32 for ad clicks on a banner for a condom company. It was a great day I will always remember.
For more great discussions and learning from folks who are making money online – check out Coaching with Josh.
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