Ten dollar verdict
You may remember that I wanted to participate in the Ten Dollar Challenge. I actually haven’t forgotten about it; I’ve been trying to come up with a brilliant idea. Of course, as Ramit points out eloquently, that’s not really a great plan. So I’ve decided to stop pondering and start acting.
Initially, I thought of doing a site I’ve had in mind for a while. It’s a review site of sorts, and I’m not going to go into too much detail since I’m still thinking to do it and you’ll be able to see it in action shortly. However, it isn’t well-suited by itself to the $10 project because it will cost me $10 to set the site up right (domain + hosting) which leaves me with $0 for buying the products to review (before people start sending them to me for free, you know, begging me to say nice things to my millions of readers…). So here’s the modified mediocre idea I’m going to work with.
I’ve recently started a new hobby (knitting) which is actually a fairly expensive hobby (of course I find ways to work around that). But the fact that there are many accessories and necessarily the need to frequently buy yarn makes it a great potential moneymaker for a blog (blogs that feature purchasable topics get ads that pay). The main thing is that it’s something I’m interested in and will enjoy writing, because without the writing, it’s dumb to even think of ads. So my $10 will go to set up that blog.
Phase 2 happens when I see ad revenue. With that ad revenue, I’ll set up the review site and fund the initial product purchases (well, at least that’s the idea). So I’ll let you know when I have the first site up and keep you updated on the progress. I’m curious about whether this is a viable plan. I guess we’ll see!
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Saw your comment about cost of setting up your review site taking the $10 to start up and hence not planning to do it immediately.
Some possibilities to reduce / do away with that
1) Free domains : There are these periodical offers (last year had .info for free, this year had .be) which are free for the first year – if one of them suits, go ahead. The older options like the dot.tk etc. are also available but not sure if that would suit you.
2) Low cost domains : Yahoo had one running for $2.99 per .com, couple of other similar offers – this might be an alternative.
3) Yet another option – someone who’s got an existing domain that he / she is liquidating – I’ve picked up a couple at a dollar or so, with at least 6 months to go before renewal.
4) Free hosting : Quite a few small to mid providers are willing to offer free hosting for an initial period in return for a link or other possible trades (no cash required). These aren’t the “free hosts” that seem to crop up and die out in spurts, but regular hosts who provide this occasionally.
With these, you might be able to get started for free or with a small payment.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes
Thanks for the info! I’ve used some of it before (I had a multitude of .info!) but haven’t considered liquidation, for instance. My main cost is the domain, because I can just tack it onto one of my existing hosting accounts until it gets big. However, in the case of the review site, the limiting factor is actually the cost of the items I want to review. There’s one that I’m very eager to review that’s about $20, and they mostly go up from there. So as soon as I have $30ish, I’ll get it started and then just go as the revenue comes in.
This reminds me, I need to post an update!