The year 2006 was a good year for myself and my businesses and ventures. I know you all have probably been reading what other people have said about their year in 2006, the successes and failures, and are probably tired of reading about them, but it is important to share them with people. If you keep everything to yourself, no one can know when you are doing something great or how your projects are coming and you then are not able to get any feedback from people. So, here is a bit of a review of 2006 from all the different projects that I am working on or am involved with.
ProfessionalGFX – Website Development Business (www.professionalgfx.net)
ProfessionalGFX had a great year in 2006. I saw many relationships with clients continue and grow throughout the year and also took on projects for a bunch of new clients. I continued working with the great guys of OffWorldWealth and East Coast Biodiesel to maintain their websites; I also continue to maintain a few other sites for previous clients as well. The best part of the year was the new clients! I brought on about 7 new clients throughout the year that provided me the opportunity to really expand my design work and also create partnerships with other designers and programmers. Some of the clients include Health Analytics, BCW Prints, JPeTailGroup, and Temple Workout Gear. In all, 2006 was very good to ProfessionalGFX and brought in a substantial amount of the money that I made this past year.
Radford Auctions (www.radfordauctions.com)
My first true full fledge business was launched this year, Radford Auctions. Radford Auctions started as a part time gig selling things on eBay for some friends and then spawned into the craze that everyone is trying to jump into – selling items for others and keeping a percentage of the total sale. Well, in August, we officially registered the business as a partnership in the State of Virginia and continue to grow it today. In the last 90 days, eBay tells me that we have done over $2000 worth of transactions! That’s awesome for us. If we can keep up with that and rock the first months of 2007 the same way, it will be a great year. However, Radford Auctions also brings my partner and myself many road bumps along the way. This being the first official business that either of us have started, we are still learning all about the laws and regulations of things we must do, papers we must file, and organizations we must pay. We have a few mentors from our universities that are helping us along the way and giving us insight into what needs to be done. We will definitely overcome the obstacles and make this a great first few months!
Virginia Hiker (www.virginiahiker.com)
The spring of 2006 was also the time of the launch of a new internet property that I am maintaining called Virginia Hiker. Being an avid outdoorsman and loving to be out and about in the wilderness, I saw this as a great opportunity to write about the stuff that I love – camping, hiking, backpacking, and spending money on new gear! The goal behind Virginia Hiker is to become a large composition of all the different hiking trails in the State of Virginia but also to offer gear reviews, pictures, and much more! Virginia Hiker is also looking to expand by finding new authors to help provide some of the content that I can not get up as often as I would like to, such as this past winter break (I meant to bring home a bunch of stuff to help me work on the site and add more hikes but forgot it all at my apartment!). So, if you are interested in hiking, being outdoors, and camping/backpacking gear, get in contact with me. It doesn’t matter if you live in Virginia or not, you can still contribute!
Literature For All (www.literatureforall.com)
Not too many people knew about this literature website that I tried to bring back to life from a previous version that was live on the web. Working with a partner, we attempted to create a free literature website where people could submit their literature and have it posted on the website. The authors then would receive a percentage of the revenue generated from the website. However, the site did not get big enough to really take off and make a lot of money via Google AdSense which was the only advertising method that was in place on it. A week or so ago the domain name expired, so it has been a full year since the site was started, and I decided to renew it just incase I either find time to update the site myself (probably wont happen) or I happen to find someone who would be interested in working with me to bring the site back to life and make some money from it (this is what I want to happen, so email me!). So, if you would be interested in helping to run a free literature website, then please contact me and we can talk more about the details. I am definitely willing to compensate you for the work that you put in based on the money that the site brings in.
Outdoorness (www.outdoorness.com)
Some of you may remember the website, Outdoorness, that I started over a year ago. This domain also recently expired and I have been trying to renew it for the past week so that I can relaunch the website. Anyway, the site was basically an outdoor website focused on offering tips, gear reviews, and just helpful information about the outdoors. The focused has now changed. I have become a dealer of a few outdoor products and am looking for an avenue to sell them through besides eBay. So, I am going to be relaunching Outdoorness not only as a blog and helpful resource for outdoor information, but as a store front. This will be my first real shot at an ecommerce project and trying to make it work. The hard part for this will be the advertising and getting some sales, writing the content for the site should not be a problem at all! So, again, if you are an outdoorsy person and would be interested in helping to grow a site like I just described, get in contact with me! I am always looking for people who are interested to help, and if you are not yourself, but know someone who may be interested in this type of thing, send them my way please!
Dorm Room Biz (www.dorm-room-biz.com)
This is really my pride internet property as of the moment. Dorm Room Biz has become a pretty well known blog about collegiate entrepreneurship and all the different things that come with it (and sometimes getting off topic). But as many probably noticed, I can some times get behind on posting…damn school work! Anyway, the site was started back in December 2005 and saw great successes. I at one point brought on a few different guest bloggers who had a couple articles posted on the site, had a total of 143 posts on Dorm Room Biz within the year, and also became a member of the MindPetals Blog Network.
I really hope to Dorm Room Biz grow in 2007 as there is a lot of potential for the website, it just needs to be harnessed! Anyone out there interested in helping to write content? Let me know!
Google AdSense
As many of you know, there are a lot of people who make very good money from running AdSense on their websites…well I am not one of them. I signed up for AdSense in the Summer of 2005 and by the end of the Summer of 2006, I had finally made my first $100. Now, I did not push AdSense optimization as much as I could have on my sites, but instead just threw the code into the pages and hoped for the best. Well, now that the code is on many different sites, the clicking and money have both been going up since my first $100. From the first $100 payment made in September I believe, I have already come close to the second $100, just about $20 more to go (so support me) and I will have reached it. It would be great to get to the second $100 by the end of January, but I doubt that this will happen, but it is worth shooting for. Anyway, I am looking to take better advantage of AdSense and really work it into my sites and monetize them correctly this year. I am also looking at other programs like Text Ad Links to help make more money.
So, you may be interested, if you read this far, what I want to accomplish for 2007 or what my resolutions may be. So here is a quick list – some personal and some business related.
1. Get in shape by going to the gym at least 3 days a week if not more. This will be starting this Monday once I am back at school and have free access to the facilities.
2. Make more money! In 2006, through internet related businesses, I probably made $5500 (on the conservative side) not subtracting expenses. By the summer of 2007, I would love to double this figure and maybe even make this my profit and not just revenues.
3. Expand Dorm Room Biz into a great resource and have at least 2 people writing content on a weekly basis for the site – releasing at least 5 articles/useful posts a week.
4. Launch two new business ventures – which I am already planning…talk about not wasting the first few days of the New Year! Look out for some postings soon about a new internet based service that I am going to be working on and also a more viable service catering to the needs of students.
5. Speak to a wide audience of people. I love sharing my stories of success and failure and I want to spread my knowledge around to others throughout Virginia and Maryland. I hope to start making this true within the next couple of months.
6. Be the best boyfriend I can be – yeah I know its kind of an un-related topic, but if I can make my girlfriend happy all of the time, then I will be happy, and can probably achieve much more! Hip hip horary for the great support network!
7. Get good grades in my classes this year. I have a few more difficult classes this semester that are focused on my major and I want to do really well in them to bring my GPA up a lot. A bunch of my friends have already taken the classes which I have, so I know I will be looking to them a lot for help with some of the work, but I really want to do well this semester and kick the classes asses!
I think that’s about good for now! I could probably list things that I want to accomplish for the year all day long, but I don’t want to do that too you. As I type this in a word document because my internet is currently down, I am hitting the 4 page mark, so I want to wrap up.
Thank you to everyone who helped make all of my projects successful in 2006, including Dorm Room Biz. Without you all and your support, Dorm Room Biz would not be around anymore and I would have a lot less desire to achieve all my goals at such a great time during my life…college. So, in return I wish you all the very best in 2007 and hope that you are able to make your wildest dreams come true business wise and also non-business wise. Try to remember that its not all about business, be sure to spend time with your family, friends, and loved ones.
Many think that entrepreneurship is all about the money and how much of it you can get in a short time. They are wrong…well kind of. Of course everyone is interested in money and making a lot of it. However, entrepreneurship is about the experiences and opportunities that you have and the hard work that you put into making something successful. After hard work and great successes, all the wealth you can image will come to you!
Yours in Success,
Chris Pund
Founder/Owner:
-ProfessionalGFX
-Dorm Room Biz
-Radford Auctions
-Virginia Hiker
-Outdoorness
-Literature For All
(man that’s a long list!)
Hey Chris and thanks for the update.
Congrats on all your successes especially with the design work and I hope you have an even better 2007!
Adnan