Starting from Broke

Starting from Broke

What if you are starting with nothing? Can you still compete? Of course you can.

At the end of 2002, I got kicked out of the military for using drugs. At that point, I was experiencing a number of things:

•       Suicidal depression

•       Financial bankruptcy, living on credit cards

•       Social isolation

•       Ignorance to the web, SEO, and marketing (slightly less serious, I know)

Within 4 years, I had pulled myself out of this emotional and psychological slump, and had achieved success:

•       I was fairly knowledgeable about the web, SEO, and marketing.

•       I had made lots of friends.

•       I was getting mentioned in the Wall Street Journal (and many other newspapers).

•       I was speaking at colleges about SEO (one college even wanted to hire me to become a professor).

•       I had venture capitalists offering to invest in this site.

•       I had a mainstream publisher offer to publish this book.

•       I got married to the most wonderful woman in the world

What did I have that allowed me to do well? I had a passion for learning. That passion helped me attract great friends who took me under their wing and helped me far more than I could have ever expected. It takes time to do well, but if you keep pushing, keep learning, keep sharing, and are trying to help others, eventually you will do well on the web.

Many true web authorities started out as topical hubs. People who had no intent of creating a business would just freely talk about a subject they loved, and linked out to related websites they found useful. Every web marketer should read this post:

You become a platform worthy of attention by talking about others who are worthy of attention. Getting people to pay attention is a real cost. You have to get people to pay attention before you can extract value from your work.

To most people, the single most relevant and important thing in the world is themselves.

Here is a quote from Radiohead’s Meeting People is Easy:

If you have been rejected many times in your life, then one more rejection isn't going to make much difference. If you're rejected, don't automatically assume it's your fault. The other person may have several reasons for not doing what you are asking her to do: none of it may have anything to do with you. Perhaps the person is busy or not feeling well or genuinely not interested in spending time with you. Rejections are part of everyday life. Don't let them bother you. Keep reaching out to others. When you begin to receive positive responses then you are on the right track. It's all a matter of numbers. Count the positive responses and forget about the rejections.

You are not always going to be able to predict what will work and what doesn’t, but the more you keep learning and the more things you try the better the odds are that something will stick. Internet marketing is just like offline marketing, but cheaper, faster, and more scalable.

Social scientists have studied why things become popular, and many things are popular only because they are already popular. In Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage Duncan J. Watts wrote about how groups tended to like the same things, but random different things in each group. Even if success is random and unpredictable there is a self reinforcing effect to marketing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html

If you keep reaching out to people you will be successful. It might take 3 months. It might take 5 years. But eventually it will happen.