Well, it’s been almost a month since my last post. I’m not going to make excuses, but the main reason is because this site doesn’t make any money and I’ve been trying to focus on my websites that do. I’ve been working on several projects and trying to concentrate more on long term projects rather than building more mini-sites and spreading myself too thin.
2008 Web Marketing Lessons
So, I’m going to take a minute and talk about a few lessons I’ve learned in 2008.
Spreading yourself too thin
I was trying to think of what this last year has taught me, and the answer is pretty obvious. Don’t spread yourself too thin! I am essentially a one man show working on my websites and I had over 20 websites at one point during 2008. For anyone that does not have websites, 20 sites is way too many to build up and maintain on your own. So, I’ve been less effective and leaving money on the table because of this.
So, I’ve made a commitment to reduce my workload and focus on more long term projects. Overall, I’m glad I made this mistake because I learned some valuable lessons that will help me succeed in 2009.
Partnerships
In the last year I’ve had 2 partnerships that didn’t work out the way I hoped. One was with my good friend Jon who owns PokerTrikz.com and he is also one of the most motivated and smartest guys I know. We had a plan to merge my 20 or so sites with his 20 or so sites, but before we got too far into it we both decided that the time wasn’t right for us and we put that on hold.
I can still see Jon and I doing some big projects down the road, but as you already know, timing is everything!
The next failed partnership is with my good friend Eric who is a brilliant coder/programmer. He has helped me get several of my sites up and running and a few months back we worked out the details for partial equity on my network and formed a tentative partnership. But, he has a huge work load from his other projects and just doesn’t have the time to devote to help me take my projects to the next level.
Eric is also the brains behind the Poker Hand Replayers that are a bit ahead of their time, but such a cool poker tool for serious poker players and webmasters. Overall, I’m still glad we tried and Eric and I will continue to work on some stuff together.
The thing about partnerships is that they can be great and very cool if everyone is on the same page, but if not it can be a total disaster and cost you a good friendship. Luckily, both my failed partnerships didn’t cost me anything but stress, but I know several people that are not lucky enough to say that.
If you can work out a good partnership it can be wonderful and really push your websites or business to the next level. If I can building 20 sites with over 1,000 pages combined, just think what a motivated partner can do. Two people are always better than one!
Anyway, back to the main point of my post. There is several lessons I’ve learned this year and each one has made me a better, stronger internet business man. there have been a few failures and just as many successes in 2008. Overall, it has been a great year for my business and my family.
I want to challenge everyone that is reading this to think about a few failures and lessons of your own in this last year. Please post them in the comment section and share it with others. My next post will be my personal and business goals for 2009 which I can already see will be a challenging but very profitable year.
On 
On