When you have a long journey ahead, sometimes it’s best not to think too much about it. You’re much better off just getting started.
For some weeks now I’ve been working on a large upgrade to our popular freelancing site FreelanceSwitch. The upgrade includes a complete overhaul of the design, some large changes to the functionality of the site and coordinating a few different sub-projects. It’s been taking a lot of time and energy and as I write this, we’re only half way there.
This morning I was reflecting that if I’d known quite how much work was involved in the upgrade, I think I might have been a little less ambitious. And in many ways that makes me glad that I didn’t know.
A bit young, a bit naive
Three years ago when starting Envato I wrote out a business plan for our fledgling enterprise. It wasn’t a particularly solid plan, at least it didn’t have any hard numbers, or organisational charts, or many of the other things I’ve since learnt are meant to be in business plans. But it did contain our strategy for how the business would grow, and to put it mildly, it was an ambitious plan. (more…)
The web is saturated with free-ness. In fact some have argued that users have come to expect things to be free, and certainly to some extent that is true. However it’s important to understand that that doesn’t mean people won’t also pay for the same things they can get for free elsewhere.
A year ago I told a couple of programmers we were going to launch a marketplace for people to buy WordPress themes and they looked at me like I’d just said I was going to try selling the oxygen we breathe. Why would anyone pay for WordPress themes when there are so many free ones around? (more…)
It’s been a few weeks since I launched this blog and it’s starting to hit it’s stride. Today thanks to the talented coding skills of Derek from ValenDesigns, the site has a new suit to look sharp in, it also has an updated About page, a new Guest Posts page, and I’ve ported over three old articles I wrote for other sites:
With the new content and new theme, the site is starting to feel much more established! Enjoy the new format!
Editor’s Note: I originally had this post published on Problogger in Jan 2008, at Finding Profitability – The Tipping Point for Expansion.
Years ago when I had more time to spare, one of my favourite pastimes was to play computer games. In particular, I rather liked those real-time strategy games like Warcraft and Starcraft, which brought hours of enjoyment, to the decline of my studies and chagrin of my girlfriend of the time.
I’ve not had the time to play one of those games recently, but now and again I do think about them, and how they relate to blogging and business. In particular they are useful for looking at the tipping point for a blog that we run at Envato called Psdtuts+, and how it went from small site to expanding little business. (more…)
Editor’s Note: I originally had this post published on TheFWA in Dec 2006, at Guerrilla Marketing.
When you’re low on cash you have to think differently
When you run your own business – be it web or otherwise – it is a general rule that you need two things to accomplish any particular task, money and time. A lot of one means you need less of the other.
If you had a lot of cash, you can just pay someone to do the work, whereas if you’re broke with all the time in the world, well…then you get creative. (more…)
