TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur's JourneyThe journal of a web entrepreneur on his journey to wealth.

Updates Galore

Wow, I’m tired. Have been doing quite a few work sessions lately, while being sure not to burn out as well. Here’s what’s in store for tonight’s entry (I apologize for my posts getting to be so long lately…)

1. What Do You Do?
2. Bookmark.com Update
3. New Table
4. Project AA & Replayer.org Updates
5. MovieForums, CookingForums, MMAForums Updates

What Do You Do?

I was sitting on the bench waiting for one of the badminton courts to open up when a new member to the club, whom we shall Bob, sat down beside me. He asked me what it was I do, and so I answered him the same way I answer everybody: “I’m a web entrepreneur… basically I have websites and sell advertising on them.”

Now, normally when I say this, people are intrigued or interested and usually either reply with “Ah, cool!” or else “You make websites?”. In either case the conversation usually continues with them asking for more information on what exactly a web entrepreneur does, but they usually understand it after a few questions. However, my awkward conversation with Bob yesterday helped me realize that what we do may not really be as simple and clear as we think it to be.

Continuing on, Bob replied with:

Bob: “You make websites?”
Me: “Not anymore really. I used to 2-3 years ago but now I just outsource the work to others.”

Bob seemed confused here and we talked for what seemed like ages, but was probably just 5-minutes, on what outsourcing was. He kept trying to compare it to a hypothetical landscaping business and subcontracting that out, and while I told him that was pretty much what I did, he still seemed confused.

The conversation continued:

Bob: “So, do you code?”
Me: “Ah, no way, I’m horrible… I outsource that too.”
Bob: “So you don’t code?”
Me: “Um… not anymore no, I outsource that now. I used to code way back when, but I could only get to a certain level. I need much more expertise on my code these days so I hire experts. Why, do you code?”
Bob: “Yeah.”
Me: “Oh yeah?” I was interested now. “What language?”
Bob: “English.”

I paused… confused. I started to think back if I had somehow made the question unclear.

Me: “Um.. no.. I mean what programming language?”
Bob: “Oh… what do you mean by code…? When you code, how do you do it? In college we did code and it was… weird and we had to do things with like numbers.. like.. 1 and 0 and stuff.. how do you do it? So it appears on the webpage? I hear there are programs that will make it for you.”

We then get into this strange conversation on HTML, WYSIWYG’s and for some reason binary being thrown into there as well. I start to get a bit annoyed as I really hate talking about ‘technical’ stuff as it’s not what I do and I don’t like people overhearing and thinking I work in technical support, but I put on a smile anyhow.

Bob then asks me “So… do you find that you can believe everything on the Internet?” I try to remember if the year is 1995 and quickly remember it isn’t.

Anyhow, I won’t bore you with the rest of the conversation, but the conversation did remind me that not everyone is as comfortable with the world of the Internet and websites as we are. Just when I was starting to think that most people understood what I did for a living too… the odd thing is that Bob wasn’t a 60-year-old man, he was not much older than me.

Bookmark.com Update

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you may remember that I announced that I was brokering the domain Bookmark.com. This was back in November and since then I don’t believe I have posted anything about it since then.

I haven’t been neglecting this, in fact over the months I’ve contacted a fair number of indivuals as well as companies both large and small. Not too long ago I also created a very well put together PDF file to send to interested parties. I analyzed the site’s traffic, visitor demographics and statistical data, inserted graphs and charts, and created a very professional piece of information. Interested parties I’ve sent this to have been impressed.

I was careful enough to sign a contact with the owner of the domain which can be seen below:

Basically I receive 10% (after escrow fees) of the final sale.

Anyhow, there’s this one company I’ve kept contacting over the past months. I got their automated responses and a couple of times received a bit more hands-on attention, but was usually quickly forgotten. I didn’t want to give up on this domain acquisition company, and kept being persistant without overwhelming them (there’s a fine line there).

Yesterday, I finally got through. I spoke with the Director of Business Development at the company, and they are interested. He enjoyed my PDF file, BTW 🙂 However, he needs more data before he can make a more ‘concrete’ offer so I have changed the DNS servers on the domain to point to theirs for a week.

They will be testing their ads and CPC rates and whatnot. I made sure that he knew that we were looking for offers of at least $XXX,XXX with $300,000 being close to our minimum. He said it really depended on how the 7-day test period fared, and that “I could offer $450,000 or I could offer $50,000” (funny how $50,000 is meant to sound miniscule here :P).

Anyhow, we are obviously still in very early pre-negotiation stages here, and everything (with this company) is lying on this 7-day test period. If it goes well, I could be $20,000-$40,000 richer in a few weeks 🙂

I’ll keep you posted on how things progress.

New Table

A few days ago I bought a new dinette table to replace what I used to have. I really don’t know what I was thinking when I bought the first one. I remember I kept telling myself it was stupid to buy a bigger table as I’d usually just be eating by myself, and when I wasn’t, that I wouldn’t need anything bigger than a table for two. Oh well, live and learn.

Here is a photo of my old table. It was only $79 I believe and was very small and made out of cheap wood (no finishing on it, square edges, not very sturdy, etc.)

And here is my new table. Nothing crazy or dramatic, and not very expensive, but it is quite an improvement over the old one, no?

The new one has cushioning, the wood is a bit stronger and has a nice light finish on it, and is more curved and rounded edges, as well as being bigger 🙂

Here’s one with a tablecloth. Which do you prefer? Tablecloth or no tablecloth?:

Project AA & Replayer.org Updates

Again, there has been progress on both Project AA and Replayer.org but I don’t have anything I can show you yet.

However, I will give you a clue on what Project AA is. It’s webmaster related.

I’ll have a visual update for you on Replayer.org on the next update.

MovieForums, CookingForums, MMAForums Updates

Since Terrorist #1 is back online, he’s back to work. I should have a preview of the MovieForums skin for you by either the next entry or else the entry after that.

The CookingForums skin should be up any day now. I will most likely be buying more of Brian Le’s ForumShock services to help kickstart it with a few thousand posts.

MMAForums.org’s hired marketing services should be done before the end of the week I’ve been told and then I can begin advertising it via AdWords and by purchasing banner slots on various sites.