The 2-week vacation challenge.

[stepan]

Hey guys

I have been getting inspiration from the progress that everyone has made with their muses, and I thought that I would also contribute to the community as well. The 2 week-vacation is coming up on the 19, and I have decided that I am going to be using that time to party, and to fully test, bootstrap and launch three businesses. At the end, I will see which one is most profitable and has the least work involved, and run it along with school.

The story so far

There are three motivations I have for succeeding in an online business.

I will be going to University next year, and I want to become financially independent.
My parents haven't visited their native country for 5 years, and the only thing holding them back from life of reading and relaxing is
I want to become location independent.


With 3 friends, I started a tutoring business in Toronto, but as Tim predicted it requires too much time. I have done my best streamlining it, but the fact that all income is divided by three doesn't bode well for financial stability. (I have only gotten about a hundred dollars out of it)

Even though it's bootstrapped, I know I will still need some money, so I have prepared two avenues that will help me fund my challenge

I turned my 30 dollars into 82 dollars at Full-tilt poker, and I will trade all of it for paypal funds
I applied for the Yakezie scholarship, and am hoping to get some mentors and 500 dollars out of it. If I get the money, I'll be able to use what I saved for Uni applications for funding/


So what businesses do you plan to start?
I am not sure about the specifics yet, but I know that they will comprise of

Two eCommerce stores
Thoughts so far include selling Electronic cigarettes, classic bicycles, martial arts equipment etc
A virtual product
I have no idea what I will make, but I know it will be mind-blowingly awesome!


My promise
I promise that I will post my progress on the forum regularly, for two reasons

I think it can serve as an amazing resource for new members. They can see step-by-step the making of a muse, with all the successes and the mistakes that came with it.
I know that my chance for success will increase dramatically. This forum is filled with intelligent people and I am sure the comments that I get during my journey will help me get much further then I could have normally.


The challenge for you
If the vacation is also coming up for you, I encourage you to write a similar pledge. Let's start 2011 with an incredible energy!

[kablooey]

I'm in.

I pledge this short-term time line for launching my first muse, an ebook.
Dec 11: Type first draft of first ebook. (Handwritten draft is already done.) Initial edits.
Dec 12: Final editing and formatting. Put it on Kindle store.
Dec 12-Dec 24: Make it available for sale on Google eBooks, the Nook , the Kobo, and Sony eReader.
Dec 26-Dec. 31: Figure out how to automate payment and sales on all those sites.
Beyond these dates I'm not sure what's going to happen but I imagine in January, I'll start learning some Google Analytics and do some A/B testing.

Pledge made. Time to type the draft. :-)

[stepan]

Awesome, can't wait to see your progress!

[kablooey]

...

I pledge this short-term time line for launching my first muse, an ebook.Dec 11: Type first draft of first ebook. (Handwritten draft is already done.) Initial edits. DONE!
Dec 12: Final editing and formatting. Put it on Kindle store. UNDERWAY AS OF WRITING THIS POST!
Dec 12-Dec 24: Make it available for sale on Google eBooks, the Nook , the Kobo, and Sony eReader.
Dec 26-Dec. 31: Figure out how to automate payment and sales on all those sites.

[kablooey]

First muse awaits approval by Amazon. It should be up by Tuesday.

Even if I don't get a single sale, I feel like I've got a ton of momentum because I've DONE something that can get me that first $1 of passive income.



Here's the proof from my Amazon DTP page, with account info, book title, and pen name removed.


WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!

http://i426.photobucket.com/albums/pp345/321kablooey/firstmuse-1.jpg

[stepan]

Awesome job bro!
Let me know how the Kindle sales go, I didn't even know we could do that!

So far I have been blazing through school work, and testing out an info product muse. I found this great resource a year back on the most amazing field-tested lines for texting girls ( No copyright and almost impossible to find), and I think if I re-purpose it into an ebook it could have potential. I am testing it on fiverr and ebay, although I haven't done advertising for it. I looked at prospects using the Google Keyword Tool, and I am looking at a 2065 dollars a month profit if I have 3% of the search traffic and 5% conversions.

I will test 2 other info product ideas and go with the best one of the three.

As for the ecommerce muses, I read Tim's articles on successful muses, and a lot of them were Nutritional supplements. I have a strong passion for Biology, so I will research ideas over this week. There is also a research grant in Biochemsitry for Canadian teens, and it could make for a good submission. For the other ecommerce muse, I am looking through products at alibaba.com ( If I'm not the only person that never heard of it until 2 weeks ago, It's an amazing site to find manufacturers)

[kablooey]

thanks!

Your muses sound good. I hope you get to that first $1 of sales soon!

[BlindSquirrel]

I'd like to join in on your challenge. Here is my muse - I'd really appreciate any feedback.

My wife decided to exit the rat race last month. She was very kind to her employer and gave extended notice. As of Jan 1, she will be a fulltime stay at home mom for our five kids. We have been looking at ways to cut our expenses to offset the loss of her income, but we have also been looking for ways to increase our income. This situation gave us the idea for this muse.

Our idea is to build a FREE membership website that offers ebooks and other free resources to stay at home moms who are looking to generate income. The site only requires the visitor to join to have full access to the free resources. When the visitor joins, they will be entered into my aweber mailing list and sent the opt-in email. When the list is built, then we can use it to generate income with affiliate products, etc.

The site is in progress and I have two ebooks that will be the start of my free resources. Right now I am working on the sales copy on the site. I have not decided if I want to drive traffic straight to the site or develop a landing page that has the sales copy.

Here are my goals/plans for the site I started on December 11:
- Find PLR ebooks to rebrand/rewrite - DONE
- Get a good domain name - DONE
- Rewrite ebooks and get new graphics for covers - DONE
- Setup aweber list and integrate with member site - In progress
- Generate great sales copy for the site - In progress
- Start to drive traffic and build list - before Jan 1
- Send first email to subscribers - Jan 1
- Integrate site with Twitter/Facebook and launch the blog - after Jan 1
- Market the site and blog on Twitter/Facebook - after Jan 1

[kablooey]

Sounds like you're taking a lot of initiative. Keep it up!

[stepan]

Sounds cool BlindSquirrel! I used to do web design, and had the same idea as you in terms of first making a name for myself , and then starting pricing. To be honest, all that time giving people stuff for free didn't give me one repeat paid customer. As soon as I started charging the real customers came. I figure that by only offering something for free, I attracted customers that never planned on buying anything. Maybe giving things out for free, while having a premium package would be a better idea, since I presume you want to generate income within a month.

-------
As for my updates, I tested the ebook on fiverr, and I didn't get a good conversion rate. I saw that there were 2 similar business as well, so it may not be the best idea to enter it. I am still saving the ebook to offer to subscribers of my future site though.

As for the ecommerce website, I thought of a pretty cool idea I would like to test out. I always wanted a store where you can buy really high quality, manly stuff for the bachelor pad. An example would be real katana ( Samurai swords), swiss army knives crazy cooking instruments and generally awesome gear that would constitute the most amazing place to hang out at. I found that there really isn't a store like that, and I think have enough expertise those types of products to fill it. I am thinking that the design will be gilt man ish. I have contacted a manufacturer that I love to see if they would be up to cooperating with me.

[stepan]

How's everything progressing guys?

Here's my update:

After consulting with Vinay (Fellow 4HWWer who runs an E-commerce store and some very valuable courses), I realized that I didn't niche down enough on the "store for the bachelor pad" idea. In fact, I would need a much larger budget to run such a company, and I didn't clearly differentiate myself from Amazon. The best thing to do would be to focus on samurai swords, and differentiate by making it more custom.

Even if I niche down, my budget is nowhere close to producing custom katana, so I moved on to the third--and potentially the most promising--test.

When I was doing Biology research about a week ago, I discovered electronic cigarettes. As soon as I saw the product, I thought I had to buy it for my dad. I looked around at Alibaba to see potential products I could stock, but because of my lack of experience in the category I decided to put it on the back burner.

However, 2 days ago I purchased a WSO from the Warrior forum, and to my surprise it was about Electronic cigarettes! It had all the information that I needed, and a guide for selling it in my area. The best part is, I can start out selling through CPA, and after a month I can use my income as capital to come out with my own niche e-cigarette! I will have captured the emails of the people that I sent over to my affiliate, so when I sell my own product I will already have access to dozens of potential customers.

I just registered Torontosmoker.com, and I will be sure to report how everything goes :)

Regards,
Stepan

[kablooey]

http://i426.photobucket.com/albums/pp345/321kablooey/firstsale.jpg

[stepan]

Great job kablooey! You broke through the first dollar, here's to your next thousand :)

[Shmaggity]

Hi Stepan,

Great update. I think you have found a terrific niche. I did some research just now on this niche, and it looks very promising. By research, I mean SEO competition, PPC, strength of competition, etc.

would love to discuss further, perhaps via email or when we get the 4HWW group set up.

Drop me a line if you like. mark79gta(at )gmail.com

Cheers.

[stepan]

Hey Mark,

Sure, I'd love to discuss it further with you :). My email is stepan.p [at] gmail [dot] com