Are You Building a Blog or Building a Business? (and Does it Matter?)

Blogging can be fun. Blogging can take up a lot of time. Blogging is very rarely a solid business model. Yup, I said it. Blogging is a great add on to an existing business model to stay in touch with your customers, add fresh content to your website, target some long tail keywords to rank for, etc. but if your primary aim is to build a business model where the business model begins and ends with blogging then I hope that you think a couple thousand dollars a month is the big time because that is likely all you will ever see – and that’s if you have a clue what you are doing (which you probably don’t) .

Harsh? Maybe. For those of you that love blogging and are convinced that it is your ticket to riches then just let the above paragraph motivate you to try harder – for those of you that realize that you probably don’t have the skill or the know-how to be a tier A blogger AND you also realize that even if you have the skill and the know-how to be a tier A blogger and that most tier A bloggers don’t really make that much money then read on.

Let me clarify.

Some bloggers are bloggers in name only. What do I mean by this? Well, the really smart bloggers realize that they need to offer a product or service to actually make some real money. In short, they need to build a business.

They can either build a cool web app like my credit card finder website I mentioned in a previous Case Study Friday and tack the blog on as an addition to the main part of the site for some of the benefits mentioned above in the first paragraph or they can offer a useful service via their blogging like Johns Wu did before he sold Bankaholic.com for $15 million.

You might be tempted to think that Johns Wu was just a blogger when he sold Bankaholic.com and in some respects he was BUT, and this is an important distinction, Johns Wu was much more than just a blogger – Johns Wu was providing a useful service each and every post. He was in the business of providing close to real time in depth and personalized analysis of CD rates, mortgage rates, etc.

You might also be tempted to just say that Johns Wu happened to “choose the right niche”  in which to start a blog and you are certainly right to some extent but if you peruse the Wise Bread Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs List you will notice that there are many other bloggers in similarly potentially lucrative niches just like Wu but they are simply blogging. Many certainly offer interesting and useful posts that I and many others enjoy reading but are that many of them actually building a business and offering a high quality specialized service (or product) like Bankaholic? No.

You might have noticed that we haven’t been blogging on this Domain Superstar blog a whole lot lately. OK, not at all. Well, we have been working like dogs on a lot of different projects that are growing by leaps and bounds and our next big project is a complete overhaul of the Domain Superstar tools dashboard.

Our Chief Technology Manager, owner of Domain Superstar LLC, and coding ninja, John G will be promoting himself to a full time position at Domain Superstar LLC so in the next couple weeks we will be redesigning the dashboard and adding many new tools for finding great domain names. If you have an idea for a tool you want or a feature you want then just let us know. You ask for it – we build it (within reason ).

That is our reason for slowing down on the blogging. What about you? Are you building a blog or building a business?

Demand Media on the Importance of Domain Names

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers! This will be short and sweet. I recently posted about Demand Media and as a new RSS subscriber of their corporate blog (and a big fan of theirs all around) I wanted to just point you to a great little post of theirs titled “What Do Domains Have to do with Social Media and Engaging Content?”

One especially interesting statistic that they mention in graph form is that over 100 million domain names lay undeveloped and that the gap between actively developed domains and undeveloped domains is getting larger and larger.

(Side Note: It is quite interesting/amusing that since Demand Media claims to be “The Leader in Social Media” that they don’t allow comments on their blog – the most basic of all elements of social media but oh well. Please feel free to leave a comment below if you so choose )

999 Small Business Ideas + Why Most New Business Ideas Are Worthless

I love hearing/thinking about/dreaming up new business ideas. Why? It’s fun and the payoff can be huge! Lots of hard work is involved of course but starting new businesses and new websites is something that is definitely enjoyable. I usually put up 3-5 new websites every week and I like to think of each website as it’s own individual business with its own market. From a domain name tools site to a website backup site to hundreds of other types of sites – it can be a lot of fun to think of new business ideas.

BUT…

Even the best idea is not worth a whole lot if you cannot execute. So before I give you a link to the list of 999 small business ideas I would challenge you to read this quote that I found here at the online version of the 37signals book: “Getting Real: Done! (Chapter 6)”. Here is the quote by Derek Sivers that I absolutely love in it’s entirety:

“It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.)

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

* Awful idea = -1
* Weak idea = 1
* So-so idea = 5
* Good idea = 10
* Great idea = 15
* Brilliant idea = 20

* No execution = $1
* Weak execution = $1000
* So-so execution = $10,000
* Good execution = $100,000
* Great execution = $1,000,000
* Brilliant execution = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.

The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.”

Before you set out to start a business or even register a domain name with the intent to develop the domain into something meaningful ask yourself, “Am I really serious about executing on this plan or am I just wasting my time by thinking up ideas that I never have the nerve/discipline/work ethic/etc. to actually do something about?”

I would challenge you to spend less time dreaming up things to do and more time getting down to brass tacks and tackling your big ideas. If you fail then so what? Chalk it up as a learning experience and dare to attempt your next big project.

Of course, remember I said that I love thinking up new business ideas at the beginning of this post so please don’t get the impression that I believe that taking the time to think up good business ideas is a waste of time. It’s not – BUT it can be if you do not follow through and execute.

Here are a few action steps:

1) Read this list of 999 business ideas.

2) Choose some of the best business ideas from the list to refine as your own.

3) Use tools like our premium membership, business formation services from MyCorporation.com, etc. etc. to execute on those business ideas.

What do you think?