Why?!
Not for lack of trying thats for sure.
For the past seven or eight years, I have tried time and time again to fulfill my life goal: Becoming so successful on the internet that I can quit my day job. This might sound unrealistic, but is it? How hard can it be to make enough to earn a living online? I’m not trying to become a millionaire, just maybe $80,000 would suffice.
So why can’t I do it?
I think I know. Long-term motivation. Let me go through a list of projects I have attempted and why they failed:
- WerkkreW Productions
This was the original reason I bought werkkrew.com. It was a joint venture to support and promote local music. Essentially we were a miniature record label/record promotion company started when we were all about 16 years old. This company lasted about 4 years actually but it never did anything except cost money. I believe the reason it failed was twofold. One, it is suprisingly hard to get garage bands to actually motivate to do anything. Despite constant pushing, promoting, going to shows, etc, etc, the bands never really seemed to be willing to put the amount of time into it we were. Two, shortly after we came out with this site and idea, things like MySpace Music came out, which essentially blew us out of the water. - The WerkkreW Society
This was essentially a vanilla web forum which we installed just so that werkkrew.com wouldn’t be an empty page. Well done message forums can actually be a great way to get successful online given a large enough user base, we just were never able to capture that audience. After about a year we peaked out at about 1000 users, with maybe 50 active users. It was fun at its peak and pretty rewarding to watch a site grow but as it slowly died, it was painful. Why did it fail? I think mostly because there was no direction behind the forum. There is really no place on the internet for yet another general purpose moderator-less message board. The most successful forums on the web usually cater to very specific audiences with a specific overall topic. We didn’t. This was the allure to the smaller userbase we did have but also the ultimate downfall of the site. - WerkkreW News
This was an idea spawned off the ever successful slashdot where we attempted to correct a lot of the issues we had with that site and namely, its moderator/comment system. We got about 50% done this project when Digg came out and just basically decided to give up. - WerkkreW Design
This was a moderately successful venture, but didn’t really fit the category I ultimately want. I basically paid my way through college through this business and its moderate success but ultimately closed it down due to simply being unhappy doing web design for other people. It became increasingly frustrating to design sites for people who are not web savvy at all. - WerkkreW Webhosting
Similar to the above, this was far too customer service intensive to be a part-time venture. We peaked with the number of customers we needed to simply break even on our costs and after getting tired of supporting retarded requests and support tickets, we decided to retire the business and retain the server for our own purposes. - Mine for a Minute
This idea never really got off the ground, I felt it was good but I never had the support of any of my close colleagues and after the release of StumbleUpon I decided it wasn’t worth really doing.
So, aside from the above, there were probably at least 10 other ideas which came and went as more motivated individuals beat us to the punch. I just cant seem to come up with the one idea I need to make all of my dreams come true.
To better describe my dream job, maybe typing it out will actually help ME better understand it.
Essentially I want to create a useful, user-driven community that people ENJOY using. I want a site that will hopefully become a staple to internet lovers everywhere. Ideas as lofty and successful as Digg and Youtube are examples, but smaller implementations such as large message forums, the ever popular ytmnd.com, or anything else people enjoy using would be amazing. I wan’t something fulfilling that I am passionate about and all around proud of. I don’t want to sell anything, I don’t want to slap up any old site that can drive traffic in like a madhouse. I don’t want to domain squat or trick people into clicking on things. I want to create. I want to make something genuinely useful and enjoyable to even just a large handful of people.
I want to feel proud of what I create.
It pains me to have the skills, talent, and resources I need to accomplish my life goals, but never seeming to be able to get there. I think I need to take a course in time management, but in reality, when I am motivated I work very hard on what it is I am trying to accomplish.
The right idea, the right friends, and the fiery passion behind my idea is all I really need.
Anyone else feel this way, if so, contact me, maybe we can brainstorm.
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