Author: Alok Soni
Passive Income Report – Nov 2013
Here is the income report for November 2013. Money from amazon india & flipkart has been converted from INR to USD to make it easier to compare.
- Amazon (US) : $110.43
- Amazon (IN) : $3.86
- Flipkart : $6.82
- CPMSTAR : $4.24
- CPMFUN : $0
- Adversal : $6.85
- Adfly : $0.55910
- Smowtion : $0.71
- CJ : $15.09
- Linkshare : $14.28
- Shareasale : $0
- Prosperent : $0.21
Total Earnings : $163.05
Todo List for Year 2014
We are already 1 month into 2014 but nevertheless here is my todo list for this year.
- Blog Regularly (This is kind of tricky as I always seem to neglect it after promising myself time and again that I will persist with it)
- Launch few sites such as clonerr, clickhere, opengarage, techvizag etc.
- Get some tech events going on vizag and also start something like open coffee club.
- Make sure our portfolio sites are in order. Currently only 1 of them is ok content & design wise.
- Attend some more events. TGP is officially the first one I am gonna attend.
- Six packs – I had these during school days but I lost them sometime few years back. This year I am gonna get them back. Just got a kettlebell and let us see if it makes any difference.
- Try to learn a new skill very 3 months. Haven’t decided on the list yet. And yes, 1 month is already lost.
- 200 new local website clients. Ideally I would like to have 1000 clients but I don’t think that is feasible until our sales pipeline become decent enough.
- Preparation for all-in-one platform for b2b sites.
- 50 Directory Sites.
- 100 Datafeed Sites. Some of my sites have been deindexed due to content issue so this year the focus will be on putting better content.
- 5 Content Curation sites.
- 100 Celebrity Sites.
- Launch 2 web applications for internet marketers.
- Launch 5 themes/plugins on themeforest. I still don’t know why I haven’t done it despite thinking of doing so since 2009. I need to get my priorities right.
- Launch wpdoctor site, which is gonna be a one stop solution for anything related to wp.
- Last but not least, make some more money.
Passive Income Report – Oct 2013
Here is the income report for october 2013. Money from amazon india & flipkart has been converted from INR to USD to make it easier to compare.
- Amazon (US) : $33.54
- Amazon (IN) : $0.785
- Flipkart : $24.292
- CPMSTAR : $7.10
- CPMFUN : $0.03
- Adversal : $11.29
- Adfly : $0.64
- Smowtion : $0.59
- CJ : $0
- Linkshare : $0
- Shareasale : $0
- Prosperent : $0.23
Total Earnings : $78.5
The so called online .net sale – Bigrock Big Failure
I received this email around 8.30 yesterday from bigrock.
I was thinking of purchasing some domains (around 30) few months down the road but seeing the offer I thought I should purchase them now itself as the offer was too good. But to make sure that it wasn’t limited to just a 1 off purchase as is routine with such offers I checked the email properly to find any fine prints. There was none mentioned in the email. Promptly I went off to the site and there also it wasn’t mentioned anywhereanywhere. Not even a traditional ‘*’ which denotes there is some fine prints somewhere. I thought this time they are really allowing as many as possible as they are already giving .net for Rs.299. So I promptly transferred Rs. 7000/- to my account and started adding domains to the cart. But once I added more than 2 domains, it wasn’t applying the coupon. From the previous gosf sale, I know that bigrock doesn’t allow the coupons to be applied to more than 2 items in the cart so I had to purchase multiple hosting account by ordering it twice. So I thought I will do the same and once I purchased 4 domains (2 at a time), for the next 2 domains I got this message out of the blue.
Coupon Per User Limit Exceeded.
Now I wasn’t really expecting this. So I opted for chat support and the person there told me that Mr. Pratik Sane will be contacting me soon regarding this. I waited for few hours but didn’t got any call. So I went to chat again and this is what happened this time.
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Department: Sales
Full Name: Alok
Email: harmonyinfotech@gmail.com
Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
Staff: Dhiren R
17:37:02 Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
17:37:02 Please wait, an operator will be with you shortly.
17:37:22 You are now chatting with Dhiren R – Sales
17:37:22 Dhiren R: Hello, Welcome to BigRock Sales Chat, How may I help you?
17:38:10 Alok: Hi. I wanted to purchase .net domains for the current sale but it is not letting me purchase more than 4 domains. There wasn’t any limit mentioned in the mailer sent.
17:38:42 Alok: I already chatted with support few hours back and Mr. Pratik Sane was supposed to contact me but I haven’t received any calls yet.
17:38:47 Dhiren R: hpw many domains do you want to purchase?
17:39:04 Alok: around 20-30
17:40:08 Dhiren R: i dont know wat the issue is exactly
17:40:14 Dhiren R: you will hjave to keep trying
17:40:23 Dhiren R: there is no such limit
17:40:51 Alok: There is a limit. The message is currently coming “Coupon Per User Limit Exceeded.”
17:41:17 Dhiren R: then you cannot purchase any more
17:41:19 Alok: Moreover it doesn’t allow to apply the coupon to more than 2 domains at a time.
17:41:50 Alok: If there was any limit then it should have been mentioned in the email or site.
17:42:21 Dhiren R has left the conversation. Click here to leave a message.
17:42:25 Dhiren R has left the conversation. Click here to leave a message.
17:42:27 Dhiren R has left the conversation. Click here to leave a message.
—————————————————————
You see, Mr. Dhiren just ran away. So I just went on chat again.
————————————————————-
Full Name: Alok
Email: harmonyinfotech@gmail.com
Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
Staff: Sonu Kumar
17:47:12 Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
17:47:12 Please wait, an operator will be with you shortly.
17:47:18 You are now chatting with Sonu Kumar – Sales
17:47:18 Sonu Kumar: Hello, Welcome to BigRock Sales Chat, How may I help you?
17:47:19 You are now chatting with Sonu Kumar – Sales
17:48:10 Alok: I want to purchase .net domains for the current sale but it isn’t letting me purchase more than 4 domains. There isn’t any such limits mentioned on the site or the mailer sent to the email.
17:49:27 Sonu Kumar: Yes you can only purchase 1 domain on that offer
17:50:47 Alok: Do you guys really know about the offer. I already purchased 4 domains under it. Anyway if there was any limit then why it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site or in the email sent to us.
17:52:11 Sonu Kumar: Please give me a moment…
17:55:16 Alok: ok
17:57:39 Sonu Kumar: Yes I just confirmed
17:57:49 Sonu Kumar: you cant purchase more than 4 domains on offer
17:58:29 Alok: Then the limit should have been mentioned on email and on site.
17:58:33 Alok: Why it wasn’t mentioned anywhere?
17:59:03 Alok: Moreover I have already transferred the amount to my account.
17:59:07 Sonu Kumar: Its on a discount offer. not everything is mentioned on offers.
18:00:11 Alok: Come on. Don’t you think it is lying to customer when you claim that the .net is available for 199 and don’t even mention the limit per customer anywhere.
18:05:28 Sonu Kumar: Sorry Alok I dont think. Companies come out with offer of .com for 99 and 109 . Have you ever read beneath the advertisement that its just a one time offer.
18:06:04 Sonu Kumar: Companies tale loss when they provide you a domain name worth Rs 549 just for Rs 199
18:06:12 Sonu Kumar: Hence there is always a limit
18:07:07 Alok: But all of them do mention the limit somewhere. They don’t just expect the customer to just assume that there will be some fineprints.
18:08:00 Alok: I know that companies take loss but you will make it up in the next few years. But my concern is why it isn’t disclosed on the site. Even now it just says “Special Offer! A discount coupon valid only for this session has been added to your cart.
Get .NET at just Rs.199 today!”
18:08:29 Alok: Not even an * which will denote that there is some fine-print somewhere.
18:09:46 Sonu Kumar: I am really sorry for the inconvenience cause Alok. I would request you to call up on my toll free number: 1-800-200-7625 and You can directly speak to your account manager regarding this.
18:09:55 Sonu Kumar: Iam sure he will be of some help to you
18:10:03 Sonu Kumar: Thank you for your time
18:10:27 Alok: ok
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So this time I was told that there is a limit in place but I wonder why it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site. So I started going through the links on bigrock.in but didn’t find any such limit being mentioned.
I wonder why they haven’t mentioned the limit whereas it is a standard practice to mention it clearly if there are any such in place. For eg. check out the http://www.bigrock.in/deals-on-domains . It is clearly mentioned
“Terms & Conditions :
This is an exclusive one time use offer, valid on your shopping cart, that offers a single .COM domain name at Rs 99. Any additional domain names will need to be purchased at the price mentioned on the BigRock site for a .COM domain name-(www.bigrock.in).This Discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotions. After the initial purchase term, the domain name will renew at the then appropriate renewal price listed on the BigRock site. BigRock reserves the right to deny use of this offer and/or cancel domains purchased using this offer if the offer is abused or used fraudulently, as determined by BigRock in its sole discretion.”
Passive Income Report – Sept 2013
As is customary with internet marketers to show their monthly earnings, I am also hereby starting the tradition of listing the earnings from my blogging/niche site building endeavors which generally is called passive income as the efforts in building the sites are supposed to pay off month after month without much active work.
- Amazon (US) : $79.38
- Amazon (IN) : $0.64
- Flipkart : $2.2
- CPMSTAR : $5.41
- CPMFUN : $0.38
- Adversal : $15.19
- Adfly : $0.43
- Smowtion : $0.32
- CJ : $0
- Linkshare : $0
- Shareasale : $0
- Prosperent : $0
Total Earnings : $103.95
Another Milestone – 5000 Gigs Delivered
Target 5000
One of my dream is to manage lots and lots of sites. The sites can range from informational sites like the one about wheat germ to celebrity fan sites like claudia romani (work in progress) to niche product sites like jumpsuits and rompers. Apart from it, I would also like to manage gaming sites like rage of bahamut.
So here is another target I am making for myself. To have around 5000 sites under my control in next 5 years. The sites will be divided broadly under the following 5 categories each having 1000 sites. I am expecting each site to generate around $50 of yearly revenue on an average so the total earnings should be around $2,50,000.
The broad categories are (The numbers in brackets are the current number of sites)
1) Gaming Sites (34)
2) Niche / Product Sites (121)
3) Celebrity Sites (21)
4) Information/Directory Sites (42)
5) Client Sites (15)
To reach this target, I would need to build around 1000 sites each year, which means around 20 sites each week. Assuming it will take 1 person to build a site in a week, I would need to have a team of around 20 people. The domain cost will be around 1000 x $11 = $11,000 yearly (plus the ones already built renewed each year) which will become 5000 x $11 = $55,000 by the time all the sites are built. Assuming 100 sites can be hosted in a hostgator reseller account, it will cost around $25 x 50 = $1250 per month which is $15,000 yearly. So the domain and hosting cost will be around $70,000 yearly. To build the sites, I would need to hire around 20 persons for the content and 5 person team to manage the sites. Assuming it will cost around $400 as monthly salary for each person, it will cost around $400 x 25 = $10,000 monthly which translates to an yearly outflow of $1,20,000 as salaries. The total direct cost of this setup comes to around $70,000 + $1,20,000 = $1,90,000. Assuming $10,000 as other misc costs, it will be around $2,00,000 yearly. If the income projection as mentioned earlier holds, then I will get a profit of $2,50,000 – $2,00,000 = $50,000 yearly, which means around $4000 monthly.
Now if I work alone for around 200 hours in a month and charge clients around $20 per hour rate, I will earn the same amount as the expected amount from the site building. The question in my mind is which way should I pursue. There doesn’t seem to be large payoff for the large risk with building out the sites unless the site’s average earnings are north of $100 per year. Maybe I should just see how the current set of around 200 sites do in the coming year and then plan accordingly.
How to make money while doing things which we love
In a quest to make money, I have tried lots of different but albeit related things like providing services like web design to affiliate marketing. Some of them failed miserably, some of them are good sporadically and some of them shows great potential but it is still a hassle to make sure everything runs at the pace I want them to be. Sometime I wonder if my focus on making money is sidelining me to just concentrate on it instead of doing something worthwhile and something more challenging. Every now and then I have to think how to make more money from the things we are doing but I really don’t like the way things are going currently. I would much rather like to solve a technical problem because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I am sure there are many like me who would just like to work on creating/doing stuff rather than worrying how they will make money out of it. But creating something doesn’t mean it will make money. Money is made when something is created and then sold to a person who values it more than the time/money spent to make/create it. There are whole gamut of different things like sales, marketing and support to go along with creating the product and it is not really a cup of tea for a person to handle all of them effectively. I have been trying to figure out a way wherein a loosely connected group of people can come together voluntarily and work together to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations. The question may arise why the need for it. I have been searching for a democratic platform wherein people with diverse skill-sets can come and collaborate together to do challenging things which make them happy as well as earn money for their efforts. I am not sure how things will work in such a loosely connected setup but I hope something workable can be found. Even though the answer still eludes me and I will be working to find a solution for it, I will like to note down few things which I would like to see in such a setup.
1) Democratic Setup with each member having a voice.
2) Work on something challenging which gives a sense of doing something worthwhile.
3) Make sure every member gets the benefit of good times.
4) Loosely coupled so that if someone wants to go on his own, he is free to do so.
5) Enable each member to live a life full of physical, emotional & spiritual richness.
The aim of the group will be to
1) Make work available which is fulfilling and make the members happy.
2) Make money while doing so.
In essence a place for people to come together, work on stuff, make money doing so and live a physical, emotional and spiritually fulfilling life.
The slogan can be – “The Pursuit of Happy Dollars”.
Back to Work
I took a break from blogging but I am back.
A Simple Tally Counter For Keeping Tracks of Bids
As mentioned in my previous post I need to put atleast 100 bids per day across the freelancing sites to increase the number of projects we are doing. It is just an arbitrary number and since we are only doing around 10-20 bids in a day, I thought putting it high enough will be a good thing to do. Since the freelancing sites doesn’t display the number of bids made on the day, I needed a way to track the bids so that I can push myself until the minimum count is reached. I tried finding a tally counter software but didn’t find any so I thought of building one myself. As I have been looking to get into programming after a long time, it should be a good way to start again from basics. As such here is the screenshot of first version of a simple tally counter for bids. I will be improving this software and will include more features including making it useful for any kind of counting work.
