General

I am Back

After missing from blogging action for almost 6 months, I am back here. Not sure how many days I can sustain my blogging efforts since every time I promise myself that I will stick to it and then break that promise. It is kinda similar to what a student does when he fails or gets low marks and promises himself that he will study next time but after few weeks it is back to square one. But as Kabir said

Karat karat abhyaas ke, jadmati hot sujan.
Rasari aawat jaat te, sil par parat nisaan.

So I gotta stick to this blogging on and then blogging none routine until I

either get fedup or make it a habit. Talking about Kabir, I have found a recent love for him which is due to this video on youtube. When I listened to it for first time, I got so overwhelmed by emotions and I continued listening to it for almost 20 times on a loop. This seems to be recorded during an event called “The Kabir Project” and I wonder why I didn’t came to knew about it earlier. It would have been wonderful to meet people who love Kabir.

On another note, the sale of Wheat Germ is picking up but still a far cry from the 100 orders a day target set by myself. I need to figure out how to promote physical products more effectively on internet. I am sure the skills gained by it can be used to promote lot many other things online.

I think this will be it for the update today, will be updating some more things soon.

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.

The so called online .net sale – Bigrock Big Failure

I received this email around 8.30 yesterday from bigrock.

bigrock-1-day-promo

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.

—————————————-

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.

————————————————————-

Department: Sales
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

———————————————————

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.”

 

 

 

 


 

 

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”.

Just wondering what is the best way to get the blog up and running properly?

Being a man of few words, I don’t feel like updating the blog every now and then but I need to do this as there are many benefits for having a popular blog. As such I have decided that I will post daily even if the content is of low quality at the beginning stage. I feel writing something regularly should be better than waiting for writing a perfect blog entry which in my case may not come anytime sooner.

An Update

It has been a long time I have updated my blog. I was pretty busy with day-to-day stuff as my company have now grown to over 12 members and I am looking to soon reach around 20 member strong.  But the growth in members isn’t exactly translating into higher revenues because the team hasn’t become productive as a whole. We have been doing some good business on vworker.com and now fiverr.com but it is still a far cry from my target of $10k per month of income out of which $5k is supposed to be from projects and $5k from blogging and affiliate marketing. Also even though I want to totally stop working on coding/development/designing projects myself but somehow or other I have to work on it. But once I am back from the Chardham Yatra, I would stop working on projects and will concentrate on affiliate marketing and blogging full time.  On an other note, this month marks something which I will remember for my whole life. I cannot/don’t want to talk much about it but just want to say to all the girls in the world, a belief in your better half (Even if he was wrong before and he could be wrong now) is much better for your relationship.

The Movie 3 Idiots and My Life

I watched the movie 3 Idiots Recently.  In more than 1 way , I had been like Rancho, though I never had the guts to do what he is capable of doing.  I mean all the mischief he got to pull-off.   I did my computer engineering because I was interested in computers from class 7th onwards.  I never cared for reading just for the sake of passing exams but for the joy of it. And it used to happen that many times I would read books meant for higher classes just for the joy of it.  I wish more people can understand that Life in itself is very fulfilling.  We need not live it for somebody else.  I particular remember 1 incident from the movie which has happened in real time to me.  I think it happened in 2nd semester. We used to have a lecturer “Venkatesan” who would come to the class and would just start reading from a book and expected us to write in our notebooks.  Now I never liked having notes.  I always felt that having book is enough and I always wrote the answers in my own words.  So on that day, as he was dictating the notes and as usual I wasn’t writing it in my notebook.  So he became furious and asked me why I am not writing in my Notebook.  I told him that the stuff he was telling is already available in the book and there is no point in writing it again in notebook as I already have the book with me ( I always used to purchase the books and never relied on library to fulfill my coursework).   And he asked me a question from earlier class and I replied the answer. The answer wasn’t exactly the same as what was written in the book but the gist was same. He said that the answer is wrong but I insisted that it is correct.  He asked me to get out of the class. I obliged him and went to library and got another book which almost agreed with my answer.  When I showed it to him, the expression on his face was priceless.  I think I had always been a very simple student doing almost what the teacher asked, but from that day onwards, my rebelliousness started with the system.  Till 12th I didn’t had any problem reading through routine school stuff but during college I started to hate it when apart from computer related subjects I had to read through many other subjects. In retrospective I don’t think it was a bad thing because learning about other related things just expands your mind but at that time I was just thinking that I am supposed to be a computer engineer and I need not waste my time on learning about *induction motors* or *tensile strength*.