Anyone start a successful company?

[sundizz]

I'm trying. This is so hard. Any success stories about making a website + getting visitors to come to your site?

[nightprowler10]

What kind of a business? I don't have any experience, but my in-laws do and I can maybe share the kind of work they put in.

[sundizz]

I just made a ecommerce website (shopify) to sell some learning videos about stuff. It's a bit hard (and don't want to) explain. It's fun...but all sorts of failure prone haha.

[rufuspaul]

Step 1: Start basketball website
Step 2: Travel
Step 3: Profit



In late 1999, Jeff decided to shake life up, and over the next few months he moved on from working in finance, got out of his NYC apartment lease, bought a laptop, started InsideHoops.com, and flew to the other side of the world.

[ace23]

Social media presence is key. Look for people who want what you're selling and approach them.

[DukeDelonte13]

uhhhnnngggghh....


you can talk to me about SEO all day long.. I got my own business. Online marketing is such a f*cking b*tch and if you don't stay on top of your people they won't do sh*t for your website.

I've blown thousands on online marketing... Still trying to find the right company/budget for it.

i'm actually in the midst of changing web marketing companies. Sh*t sucks.

[Akrazotile]

OP you're going to want to contact the poster MarloStanfield for advice in this capacity. The restaurant company that he opened resulted in such a busy schedule, he actually had to hire an assistant in order to manage his finances and purchase marijuana for him.

Good luck :cheers:

[Thorpesaurous]

It obviously totally depends on your marketplace.

My buddy worked in sales for a hardwood flooring company. He was basically a scheduler. They subbed out installation by these crews. He had good relationships with those guys. He did the purchasing of the materials. He had good relationships with them.

The company wound up going under. And when he left, he started figuring "they were just cutting into the profit margin I was creating anyway". So he just started pushing to try to keep the contracts he had worked. I loaned him a large sum of money to do his first couple jobs. Once they were done, he could just roll the profit over into the next jobs, and off they went. He grabbed a partner, a guy he used to work with. They both have relationships with a lot of local General Contractors, where he can get the new construction jobs that can really drive the business. And they specialize in super high end custom work. They trimmed a lot of fat from what the other business was doing, and he's making twice as much money as he was.

The hard part for him was getting everything legal. Registering the business. Setting up the tax code stuff. Lining up insurance.

That's just one example where "building a website", is totally secondary. The trick was knowing the suppliers, the installers, the contractors. It's not a product that sells really based on internet searches.

[sundizz]

uhhhnnngggghh....


you can talk to me about SEO all day long.. I got my own business. Online marketing is such a f*cking b*tch and if you don't stay on top of your people they won't do sh*t for your website.

I've blown thousands on online marketing... Still trying to find the right company/budget for it.

i'm actually in the midst of changing web marketing companies. Sh*t sucks.

Yeah, that is kind of where I am at. I found what I think is a "legit" guy that will do on-page SEO + off-page SEO. However, I think it is still too early for me to even consider SEO. I plan to cold market it first myself and continue building up the related blog and see where I am at in SERP after 30-45 days.

Doesn't make sense to bring in traffic unless it converts.

Willing to share any more of what you've gone through/going through? Might hire an outsourced guy to do some legwork of putting together a database of contacts instead of doing it myself.

I got basically one month (exactly) to see where how it goes. I start a finance internship on June 23rd.

[nathanjizzle]

I just made a ecommerce website (shopify) to sell some learning videos about stuff. It's a bit hard (and don't want to) explain. It's fun...but all sorts of failure prone haha.

most start ups fail. websites like lynda and khan academy that are based on tutorial videos are million dollar websites. not sure if thats what your website is but maybe thats something you want to lean towards.

[sick_brah07]

this is interesting,

i am trying to start my own financial solutions company

anyone here have any experience?

[IamRAMBO24]

I just made a ecommerce website (shopify) to sell some learning videos about stuff. It's a bit hard (and don't want to) explain. It's fun...but all sorts of failure prone haha.

Sell me this pen.

[DukeDelonte13]

Yeah, that is kind of where I am at. I found what I think is a "legit" guy that will do on-page SEO + off-page SEO. However, I think it is still too early for me to even consider SEO. I plan to cold market it first myself and continue building up the related blog and see where I am at in SERP after 30-45 days.

Doesn't make sense to bring in traffic unless it converts.

Willing to share any more of what you've gone through/going through? Might hire an outsourced guy to do some legwork of putting together a database of contacts instead of doing it myself.

I got basically one month (exactly) to see where how it goes. I start a finance internship on June 23rd.

sure. Wanted to just have a professional website as a means of generating more leads. Website based referrals aren't very popular in my industry yet for guys in my specific practice area, but i wanna get a leg up and get an internet presence earlier than the rest.

I used yodel for a while, think i was spending like around 950 a month with them. The phone was ringing but didn't convert many calls at all.

I was with them for about 6 months.

then went to a smaller independent company, and i'm paying around 500 a month now. barely getting any calls whatsoever.

Thinking about switching to another company that seems pretty promising, they seem like they are going to be more on your ass about creating content.

i'm gonna get a proposal from them tomorrow, they budget it like half on site half off site and then a seperate adwords budget.


In my experience, i feel like you really just gotta be on the ball with keeping your SEO company in check. The problem is its tough to make enough time dealing w/ this crap. I just wanna pay somebody and have them actually focus on my site 24/7 and me not have to worry about doing anything.

[bigkingsfan]

You need pornography.

[sundizz]

sure. Wanted to just have a professional website as a means of generating more leads. Website based referrals aren't very popular in my industry yet for guys in my specific practice area, but i wanna get a leg up and get an internet presence earlier than the rest.

I used yodel for a while, think i was spending like around 950 a month with them. The phone was ringing but didn't convert many calls at all.

I was with them for about 6 months.

then went to a smaller independent company, and i'm paying around 500 a month now. barely getting any calls whatsoever.

Thinking about switching to another company that seems pretty promising, they seem like they are going to be more on your ass about creating content.

i'm gonna get a proposal from them tomorrow, they budget it like half on site half off site and then a seperate adwords budget.


In my experience, i feel like you really just gotta be on the ball with keeping your SEO company in check. The problem is its tough to make enough time dealing w/ this crap. I just wanna pay somebody and have them actually focus on my site 24/7 and me not have to worry about doing anything.

Wow. You spent a lot on SEO. I know it's time consuming but have you done any SEO research yourself?

From what you are saying it sounds like you got your website running for a localized reason (generate local leads for something you actually do offline).

Those campaigns should really not be that expensive at all. Localized campaigns are quite easy to rank for + especially for a niche market. And yeah, in 2014 Google has made "content" king. Personally, from what you are saying I'd spend much less on SEO and use that money toward getting someone to write blog articles that you can post up 3x a week.

Considering your high level of margins (i assume paying up to $50 to get a customer will still net you profit), I'm also surprised you are not using AdWords and Facebook exclusively (and letting organic SEO happen naturally). On Facebook you can now even target people by the car they drive...it's wild. The biggest problem with Facebook is that getting people to leave Facebook is tough. Gotta do a double pay system; first pay to get them to like your page and second pay to promote your posts to them (and gotta post often). It does work though. I'd check out jonloomer.com if I were you. Seems like you are spending a ton of money on useless marketers.

Interesting though. I haven't had a chance to actually talk to many other website owners....so it's great to hear about your experience. Thus far, I realized that half of the internet are just scammers. I tried to hire developers...always took 3x as long and delivered half the quality I wanted. Ended up axing them and just figuring out how to put the site up and configure it myself. Sort of taking that same approach with SEO for the moment. People quoting me all ranges of prices without even understanding my business model.

SEO companies generally fail in that one key aspect; they are less concerned about bringing in converting visitors and more concerned about showing you that you rank well.

My Facebook business page has 5700 likes but I know they are useless (e.g., people that are not converting customers..just a lot of people that like the concept of what I do). The only good thing is that it looks "good" so (# of posts, # of likes from people, etc) so I can include it as part of my signature on emails. Gives that necessary "social proof" that really helps people make the buying decision. The show don't tell tenet of marketing.