Things I Wish I Knew Before... [2011 Edition]

End of the year once again...

For some it was a year of great success, for others it was a year of... Not so great success, but we all got through and we are all ready for the next year.

This year we got a lot of amazing members which became really helpful really fast.

So in this thread I would like to address all members... Please write here in this thread, of all the things youve done differently if you had known before, or what have you learned through your process so to speak,

Ill start.

1. Things take A LOT longer then you might think. AdWords can take up to 10 days to get approved, Facebook up to 7, PayPal up to 5. When a freelancer says it'll take him 2 weeks to finish the work, chances are that it'll take 4, because of all the testing, errors, etc.

2. If you want to create your own product, first create the home page, and If people want to sign up, tell them something along the lines of "the site will be done soon, please check later" reason for that is that you can create a site in a day, and the next day you cans give $50-100 to Adwords and see if people will go on your site and will want to join. If they do, then spend your time to quickly come up with the product and payment system.

That is all for now...

BHW family... Please contribute

I have learned not to give up on things too quick- several projects I either gave up on or lost momentum with then they started showing their worth after I'd already moved on to something else.

Also learned not to take BHW for granted - it's like no other place

-Things take much longer then expected!
-Don't try to do everything yourself! Have freelancers do the work, and you do the managing!
-Don't be selfish! Partners can help you a lot while you still make decent money.
-Don't bounce between projects! Make sure do complete each well before moving on.
-If you have a great idea, but don't have time to execute it, partner up!

Stop working on smaller projects and take the same amount of time for all of those smaller ones to work on a big one. The success will be greater.

this year from da start of feb was lucky for me along wd some falls nvr mind.. still improved my lots of skills, got my hands on wordpress and wrote hell lot of articles, thanks to me

DerDer said:

-Don't bounce between projects! Make sure do complete each well before moving on.

Click to expand...

This is one of mine. Too many ideas. Some projects get forgotten.

thizzladen said:

Stop working on smaller projects and take the same amount of time for all of those smaller ones to work on a big one. The success will be greater.

Click to expand...

This is my mantra. It's the whole analogy of a fisherman having twelve small trout mounted on the wall....no, he has a massive fucking marlin.
I was fortunate enough to understand this lesson in my early IM/SEO days, and it has really paid off for me.

I wish all my BHW friends a safe and profitable new year.

OP, edit your post to include these replies so that new viewers can see the entire list instead of having to browse the thread.

I learned to take action. If you continue to read but never do anything, you're going to go nowhere. Your mind will be boggled on the "perfect" project, but there's no such thing.
Learn from your mistakes and move on.

I've learned so much... but probably the biggest one - any idea can become great with enough tweaking and patience.

todays lottery numbers

end of 2011 would be the end of my 2nd year of doing IM for a full-time income.

some of you might know what i'm talking about when i say that having your sole source of income set in something that fluctuates wildly every day is extremely friggin stressful. i did have all the numbers calculated out, but i just didn't "believe" that IM was something that could work long-term. it felt like my entire business could just evaporate overnight, pretty much all the time.

i think the most important thing i've learned over the last 2 years is getting over all of that stuff - actually accepting (on a gut level) that IM is a stable source of long-term income, and a perfectly viable career choice. as opposed to freaking out over every little income fluctuation that happens, thinking that it might be the end of it all.

i've said jokingly before that i'm somehow making money online despite not having a goddamn clue what i'm doing. and that's still pretty much true. i guess i've just gotten used to the ever-present uncertainty in this line of work. and it only took 2 years. xD

I have just started out IM late 2011, and I feel it is a land of opportunity for someone smart enough (don't consider myself as such though) and more importantly, with a good mentor/advisor.

It is easy to find info on this forum, but when you don't know what you're looking for, it is difficult to find it.

So I wish I had spent more time on this forum earlier...

I wish I had come across IM and BHW earlier, it is really difficult now to allocate time while working at a 9-5 job and having kid & wife