I spent the whole of yesterday thinking about my online “business”. I’ve reached a point where it’s no longer a game or hobby, and that I should really have a long-term strategy. And so I made a painful decision to rightsize …yup not downsize… my ventures - taking it to a point where I could grow my consultancy yet maintain my websites.

I’ve come a long way since venturing online in 2005, with the aim of making a living off the Internet. Perhaps it was because I like having more time, not needing to deal with office politics, no limitations to my earnings, not having to answer to my boss, no threats of retrenchment, being the sole beneficiary of whatever value I create …the list goes on.

I remember starting out with “domaining”. I registered over 100 domain names in a month, hoping to land one that I could sell for a fortune and trying to make money automatically through domain parking. Partly inspired by big sales like business.com that was sold for an obscene figure of US$7.5 million in 1999, all I got was a C&D letter from a German firm.

I got my first break a couple of months later when my desktop wallpaper website sold for US$7,000 - it had costs me $0 and 2 months effort. That motivated me to learn basic web design using a GUI editor, how to monetize my websites and most of all, promotion strategies to achieve my marketing goals - I’m still learning.

I begin providing SEO and online marketing tips in late 2006, and eventually consulting services. I got invited for my first speaking gig in March alongside some very illustrious speakers, and went on to moderate an online marketing workshop for Malaysia’s leading ISP last week.

This blog was created almost a month ago but I’ve been writing almost like a full-time blogger. I never knew I love writing until now - 27 posts (including this one) in 30 days! I’ve made new friends, got partnership offers and job enquiries through this blog. Collectively, my network is receiving close to 1,000,000 visitors/mth and my forum should register its 10,000th member next week.

Amid all these activities, I’d like to work with my clients like an “internal” staff instead of selling a standard SEO package like every other consultant does - give quotation, collect payment, implement campaign, done! It’s more fulfilling to go with them all the way to help them achieve their marketing goals and for that, I’d need to spend more time with them.

If only convincing them that I’m different from consultants that charge 80% less was easier …aargh! Maybe I shouldn’t bother but let them waste some money and learn the hard way - pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

So it was with this in mind that I decided to shutdown almost 10 websites yesterday, bringing my network to the correct size so that I could grow my consulting services, hence the term “rightsizing”. That’s about 3,000 visitors/day, more-than-pocket-change earnings and 1 dedicated server.

While we’re on this, just a word of advice for budding entrepreneurs that you shouldn’t think “…if I could create 100 maintenance-free websites or automatic blogs and make US$1/day from each, that’s US$3,000/mth!” - it doesn’t work that way in reality.

Another long post - I hope it doesn’t sound too boring for my readers. :)
Ok, enough ranting. Time to go back to work.