Dare to Invest in Dreams
It was February ’07 when I made that decision. I left my job, moved away from home, and started a new life in Michigan with my girlfriend Cassie. With the understanding that my savings could not carry me any more than one year, I made a personal ultimatum: LifeReboot would average $10/day in six months, or I would give it up to seek out more reliable income.
It’s August ’07 now, and I’m proud to say that I will continue writing for LifeReboot. In July, the site earned $373 — an average of $12/day. I’ve reached my six month goal and I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about it.
To celebrate the completion of LifeReboot’s experimental phase, I’ll be upgrading the site to a dedicated host. I’ll avoid explaining any detailed technobabble about what that means and simply say it will allow LifeReboot to continue to grow. Upgrading to a dedicated host is therefore another important milestone in the LifeReboot Timeline:
08-2007 Planned an upgrade to a dedicated host.
07-2007 Three articles met the front page of Digg. Averaged $12/day.
06-2007 LifeReboot gets over 100 subscribers. Averaged $5.70/day.
05-2007 First link from Digg crashes site. Upgraded to a high-volume host. Averaged $4.20/day.
04-2007 LifeReboot earns its first dollar. Averaged $1.40/day.
03-2007 LifeReboot goes public via the World Wide Web.
02-2007 Site concept and design cause me to begin “rebooting” my life.
01-2007 New Year’s Resolution: Dare to invest in my dreams.
Making the decision to upgrade has been the most terrifying venture yet — but if I expect to take LifeReboot to the next level, I need to make serious investments in it. With the experimental phase over, I also need a new goal:
In another six months, I hope LifeReboot will be earning $1000/month.
To everyone responsible for helping me reach my first goal for LifeReboot: Thank you. It’s been a fun experiment. I couldn’t have succeeded without your readership and support. Cheers — to investing in dreams!
(Edit:Â LifeReboot’s Current Monthly Earnings are available in this article.)
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14 Responses to “Dare to Invest in Dreams”
I’m so happy for you!
I’m interested, now, to see just what all you’ve got planned after dedicated hosting to help bring you to your $1000 a month goal. Obviously writing will be your first and foremost objective, as well it should be. $33 a day isn’t that easy a task when your personal subject matter will stray further and further from being a reboot, and more a going through the paces remembering and giving advice.
You yourself will not be a reboot forever. You’ll get along with your paces, and settle into being a writer and advice giver.
I don’t like that my words seem discouraging, because I don’t want them to be. But it’s the truth. I’m not sure that you can supply significant force to reach your $1000/month goal, without supplying more than your own personal writings to get you there.
I think the concept of LifeReboot lends itself naturally to a social web experience. The main page obviously would continue to be you posting, and writing about your observations and advice. But in the background there could be a forum, and a support system established not only to increase your AdSense loads, but the overall usefulness of your website.
Let me know if you need any help with that 08-2007 goal. You have similar goals that I do, and I’ll gladly like to see what I can do to help you.
Congratulations! I’ve really enjoyed your writing and I’m glad to see it continue. As a fellow dreamseeker (I signed the incorporation paperwork on my new business today – eek!) and corporate refugee, I find seeing someone else succeed at their dreams a real inspiration. Here’s to going nowhere but up!
I think you can make $1,000/month easily! Why? You’re really dedicated to actually making it happen. What also helps is your blog is entertaining to read; both your posts, and the hordes of negative comments you receive about your writing style, post content, and so on. So glad this didn’t deter you – keep going! 🙂
Keep on rocking Shaun! I’m enjoying life much, much better now. Thanks for helping me see the way.
🙂
Gadgetpig (Your fellow liferebooter)
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I wanted to suggest this earlier: You should look into writing freelance for newspapers, magazines and some websites. I wrote an article for Linux.com and while it isn’t much money, it’s better than nothing considering I don’t have a job at all.
Also, you’re right about Helium. I entered one of the contests they have on the site and was in the top 3 for a few days. Then, a flood of people (well there were just 5 of them but 5 people can do a lot of writing) entered the contest and I didn’t stand a chance. The site is also not designed for longer articles because the layout of an article is limited and you can’t use HTML tags to emphasize things or to create headings. It’s basically a race to the bottom.
Good luck with August 😀
Congratulations! That Digg article got me over here and now I’m a regular reader. Great stuff! Very inspiring.
Congratulations!
I must say that it’s not terribly difficult to average $20 a day on a blog… regardless of the subject matter. Blogspam (which sadly, most of this site seems geared twoards) can net $20 a day off Digg very easily. Sadly, nobody is about to make a living off $20 a day in the US.
You are going to face a very tough challenge in your quest to hit $1000/month regularly. Either you will dedicate your life to being a Digg-blog (it’s not too hard to spot the regulars, and with your simplistic self-help posts, you’re well on your way to being a Certified Digg Blog), or you will have to branch out.
I’d recommend a design reboot (the site’s elements demonstrate great skill in the coding- but the overall page layout doesn’t really show a big eye for design)… make yourself stand out.
A reboot has to start up and get running eventually, and this looks like the “Welcome” screen of your life. You’re at the door- time to walk through it.
@John: Well said. He definitely should branch out or risk fading away.
Maybe try writing a post or two on different subjects other than self-help. The article about WoW addication was really good and attracted a lot of readers because it was well-written.
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Thank you. Your words have given me the courage to do what I should have done a year ago: I’m quitting college and taking a backpack…. somewhere. I’m not sure where I’m going or what I’m doing, just that it’s something I need to do. Thank you.