Lessons Learned in 2008

I'm starting this thread so that we can all learn from each others mistakes. What have you learned in 2008 and how will you apply the lessons you have learned in 2009?

I don't have much to post here, I feel like what I do have to post is embarrassing, but I will post what I do have, hoping that someone might learn from my mistakes...
Looking back on all the things I've done wrong, I can't find anything other than the fact that
I didn't go "all in" on anything, and the reason for that is that I just couldn't commit to specific methods.

I bought a cookie stuffing script and was too afraid to use it. So I wasted a buttload of money on something I had not thought about enough. Obvious Lesson Learned: Don't pay for anything Blackhat until you've accepted the consequences of using it. I wonder if I can resell that script.

Same with membership-sites... I joined several and didn't apply anything. Between those two mistakes I wasted several hundred dollars on things I was not prepared to follow through on because of the possible consequences. This might sound cheezy, but I learned that BHW has the same content found on the paid membership Blackhat sites.

Autoblogging is my best example of testing a method-- you need a lot of them to make a lot of money, and I'm simply not willing/able to spend all the time and money necessary on that. I started a few autoblogs, the technology was interesting, but in the end it was boring as hell to set up and maintain blogs about things I really didn't give a damn about. Same with whitehat blogging - too time intensive-- so it sounds at first glance like I'm just a fricking idiot with a short attention span, but after a moment of reflection I've learned that I am easily bored so I should not try to sell products or services I am not interested in. I start these projects and don't finish them. So what can I do with that lesson? It's not obvious at first. I was really down on myself, until I realized I had several websites that just had to be tweaked, then I could get rid of them... over and over again. By going through this brainstorming session I discovered that I might be able to make some decent money by developing and flipping Whitehat and Blackhat IM websites and blogs. Look for more on that from me in '09.

My only regret I had in 2008 was not going all in for my one project, that is all about to change once the ball drops in 2009 as I am launching a complete update from the ground up of my website Jan 1st.

Well, we humans have this little imaginary thing called January 1,
I'm hoping myself to make the most of it because we get this fresh feeling only once every 12 months. Happy new year people!

I regret leaving BHW for a few months Been too busy moving house, looking after WH clients etc. Had some spare time lately and since money from my first CS venture has continued to roll in over the last 6 months I decided to jump back in Shouldnt have bloody left in the first place.

Well

1.Nothing isn't as easy it sounds
2.With computers everything can get fucked up in blink of eye.
3.don't buy anything unless you know for sure thats really usefull
4.Keep working more :O im just so fking lazy that i need to change that and work my ass of rather than checking images on ***** and sites like that or pressing refresh on bhw "home" page

theres some goals for next year "not to do"

For me 2008 was the year of True Colors.

I discovered most MLM guru's where full of shit. So i had a colon cleanse.

Quite a few people a worked closely with did some really crappy stuff.

I discovered CashGifting and then I discovered that more than 97% of USA currency tests posative for high grade illicite drug residue and that carrying more than $3000 through an airport check in or a FedEx package you be technically arrested for Drug offences.

So i am re considering the flexable ethics employed by promoters of CashGifting and that of my moral compass as being seriously compromised by imbasilic brain sucking video's of truck loads of cash arriving by FedEx and the idea that it is as easy as they say it is..

I discovered that the sales letter for any hot new information product or course is the best most exciting part of the whole deal, compared to what you get when you hand over your money.

I discovered that most internet Guru's love long copy, sales pages and hiding the price, which is a complete head fuck for me.

I disocovered that you can be banned, terminated, deleted, blocked and shut down by bogus means with no right of reply or defence.

I have forgotten more than i learned with the internet in the last two years leaving me feeling like i know fuck all because of lack of results but everything else like my credit card numbers bank accounts pass port number i can remember.

I feel that the majority of people filling out splash page info saying they want to earn more than $10,000 a month and are willing to invest a 100 bucks cant be real people.

I think that the reason, The Secret, was a secret for so long was because they had to wait for YouTube to peek and Oprah.

I learned that once you have two computer monitors three could be better.

I learned that a can of coke spilled on your laptop computer can completely screw it and also rot the enamels in your neck top computer simultaniously.

I think that mobile phone makers are holding out on us when it comes to technology.

Christmas was an interuption to my dumbing down process.

I would kill for knowledge but not for money.

The internet is always to slow and I dont like paying my phone company.

I dislike banks, speed camera's, teenage drinking and boats less than 50' in length.

The Matrix got me addicted to Viagra.

BHW is like tailings from a gold mine you know there's gold in there but it takes some digging to find it.

M

Megaplex, your post is one I am going to keep. I thoroughly agreed with your insights. My biggest mistake is trying spin too many plates at the same time.

I learned that you can make money on the internet.

I learnt this BH stuff isn't as easy as I thought!

I learned that I should have read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" years ago.
I learned that you don't mess with Taxes. If you make over $100k a year find a professional.
I learned that you should not invest into projects unless there is a clear way of making money.
I learned that it's the simple ideas that make lots of money and the large ideas you waste that money on.
I learned that no matter how much money you make you can spend it very easily.
I learned that even If you're making money now, never stop looking for new ways to generate income because you never know when an idea will dry up.

This thread is getting tons of views but few posts. Thanks for posting what you have, guys. Would love to see more though.

For me it's real simple...I learned that my time and energy are finite things, while my ideas are infinite...not a good problem to have but I guess I'm only human.

For me, I need to do only one thing in 2009....simply focus on what's already in front of me and quit trying one more method, one more info product, or one more technical product, etc. If I just focused on my 4 core money earners, I could have earned much much more. I commit to not make that mistake in 2009.

I learned that I'm lazy, very lazy. So when I read threads that encourage people to keep on trying I realize I'm reading the wrong post in the wrong forum, in the wrong side of the planet.
I learned to make money on the web, and my wife learned I can make money on the web, so I learned wifes always have a little piece of paper in their pocket with a list of 5 things they want to buy right now, understand, right now, let's go shopping now.
Also I learned to fly under the radar, and I really hate flying under the radar, because I wan't to be free.... (music in here).

greyhatdude said:

I'm starting this thread so that we can all learn from each others mistakes. What have you learned in 2008 and how will you apply the lessons you have learned in 2009?

I don't have much to post here, I feel like what I do have to post is embarrassing, but I will post what I do have, hoping that someone might learn from my mistakes...
Looking back on all the things I've done wrong, I can't find anything other than the fact that
I didn't go "all in" on anything, and the reason for that is that I just couldn't commit to specific methods.

I bought a cookie stuffing script and was too afraid to use it. So I wasted a buttload of money on something I had not thought about enough. Obvious Lesson Learned: Don't pay for anything Blackhat until you've accepted the consequences of using it. I wonder if I can resell that script.

Same with membership-sites... I joined several and didn't apply anything. Between those two mistakes I wasted several hundred dollars on things I was not prepared to follow through on because of the possible consequences. This might sound cheezy, but I learned that BHW has the same content found on the paid membership Blackhat sites.

Autoblogging is my best example of testing a method-- you need a lot of them to make a lot of money, and I'm simply not willing/able to spend all the time and money necessary on that. I started a few autoblogs, the technology was interesting, but in the end it was boring as hell to set up and maintain blogs about things I really didn't give a damn about. Same with whitehat blogging - too time intensive-- so it sounds at first glance like I'm just a fricking idiot with a short attention span, but after a moment of reflection I've learned that I am easily bored so I should not try to sell products or services I am not interested in. I start these projects and don't finish them. So what can I do with that lesson? It's not obvious at first. I was really down on myself, until I realized I had several websites that just had to be tweaked, then I could get rid of them... over and over again. By going through this brainstorming session I discovered that I might be able to make some decent money by developing and flipping Whitehat and Blackhat IM websites and blogs. Look for more on that from me in '09.

Click to expand...

Your experience is one shared by a lot of people. Many of the ideas on bhw sound wonderful until you get down to the brass tacks and realize what the consequences of your actions may be if you happen to leave out one crucial detail (that may or may not have been disclosed.) As I read your post, long before I got to the end, I thought to myself, "With this person's short attention span, flipping sites may be his or her calling.". Sounds like you may have found your niche.

Tell me about it (short attention span), that is the only thing that kept me from succeeding anything in 2008. Just foot stepping on the same spot. Now, i am doing the Autoblogs and i don't mind doing the same procedures over and over again (i get better at it) but the result is just putting me off. I see many people started their blogs only a few days and get clicks, that is really beyond me. I just don't know what am i doing wrong as i'm using the same plugins as most people who succeed.

CyberDilemma said:

Your experience is one shared by a lot of people. Many of the ideas on bhw sound wonderful until you get down to the brass tacks and realize what the consequences of your actions may be if you happen to leave out one crucial detail (that may or may not have been disclosed.) As I read your post, long before I got to the end, I thought to myself, "With this person's short attention span, flipping sites may be his or her calling.". Sounds like you may have found your niche.

Click to expand...

Well, it's not really a niche in my mind, so much as a solution for the problem I've created. it's also a way to profit from the mistakes I've made while promoting niches I don't care about... a way to "Make Lemons into Lemonade", if you don't mind that cliche. I need to unload those domains and will probably sell them cheap but at a profit, not accounting for the time I've wasted on them. (I might sell them as a bundle, the aim is to subsidize my purchase of SEnuke and Bookmarking Demon) The real lesson learned - in my opinion - has been that I should stay away from niches I don't like. I will also probably spend more money on better domain names and serious website development instead of trying to use things like BANS scripts or tweaking Wordpress into a CMS when I'm not really blogging.

As for what METHOD I'm pursuing, it's certainly not autoblogging. I might make greyhatter.com a blog about what I'm doing, along with aff links and software reviews, but I'm avoiding blogging in general while going heavy into niched ecommerce sites, dating, and the entire adult niche. I'd actually enjoy having tons of those sites, while having tons of blogs just sounds like a pain in the ass. I will promote some of the sites using blackhat methods and some whitehat. I also may experiment - conservatively - with claoking and stuffing cookies on all or some of those sites.

I should probably mention that I also have a bookmarking ebook in the works, but it is a sideproject -- not a major focus. I think I can make a few grand on a WSO and some constant revenue by promoting it as a paydotcom affiliate deal, but it won't make much and isn't all that fun, so I'm not focusing on it. (And I have the domain already.)

Last of all, if you've read the $10k in a weekend thread you'll see that I'm into public speaking and seminars for small businesses. Setting up a JV is taking a long time, and I am shopping around for a provider to create a solid event management system - based website. It will take a while to set up, but once it's rolling, it will be a real money maker.

2009 Will definitely be a good, fun, and hopefully profitable year.
Happy New Year!

greyhatdude said:

Last of all, if you've read the $10k in a weekend thread you'll see that I'm into public speaking and seminars for small businesses. Setting up a JV is taking a long time, and I am shopping around for a provider to create a solid event management system - based website. It will take a while to set up, but once it's rolling, it will be a real money maker.

2009 Will definitely be a good, fun, and hopefully profitable year.
Happy New Year!

Click to expand...

Since you enjoy public speaking, you may want to consider an idea I came up with awhile back but never really did anything with. Put together a flyer for an introductory course on how to use the internet. Just basic stuff as if you were teaching your grandfather how to browse the net. Next approach church pastors offering to give your course for members of their congregations. Offer the churches a 10% kickback as a donation for all the course fees you collect. Old people are afraid of the internet. The pastors will be gung ho on getting their older members to sign up for your course because they know they are getting money out of the deal. Plus lots of opportunities for upsales. Win win situation.

well as for me...i am damn LAZY for the year 2008...BUT this year i am going to work DOUBLE hard so that i can retire early....i had wasted alot of time.

I learned that eBay (not just EPN but the whole site) is a VERY easy to exploit and make A LOT of money with!

Nothing is as hard as it looked like it would be before you started, after you're done.

Ya'll enjoy that little bit of redneck Texas logic. It actually makes sense, it just ain't real grammatical.



The corollary to the above is that I've learned how much I can actually get done in an hour if I really focus. Pretty amazing to be honest.