Business a Week

#15: MormonMediaWatch.org

Colin Jensen — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:20:28 +0000

It’s been a few weeks. Yes, I’m working on a few things, but more than anything I’m broke. So I’m killing the golden goose by not building my businesses. Instead, I’ve been looking for odd jobs to pay the bills. Yes, I have a full-time day job, but our economy has dictated that breadwinner males just shouldn’t be school teachers, since there’s no way to raise 4 people on $35K. For the ideas I do have, I don’t have the $10 for a domain! So my A1A lately has been getting food and making sure nothing gets shut off in any given day. I have, however, taken the time to keep building out the first 14 sites, and some time to work on some potential future weeks. Scriptureforum.net has hundreds of chapters now, Printshopforsale.net sold about 4 books this month, making $15. I also put an Amazon aStore on a few more sites. Again, $15 is nothing, until you realize I haven’t put 1 minute into it this month. And I’ve said it before, if you want me to design a business around your business (as was the case with #2, ramprint.com, pitch me the idea and we’ll see what’s up.) Another thing I’ve got going is an RSS aggregator for UnionStatesman–so if I don’t post a news article on a given day, it does it for me!

Okay, so this week I have a business I’ve dreamed of but not had the technology to pull off in the past. I also don’t have the domain yet. But MormonMediaWatch.org, which now resides here. It will suck an excerpt of every news article that uses the word “Mormon” (probably limited to 10 a day), and then I and others can comment on the appropriateness of the usage. If you’re from a different ethnicity, you may not realize the complete and general media sensationalism that surrounds the word “Mormon.” But most times it’s used, even by the big companies, it’s used in an inappropriate way–either in violation of AP style guide rules, or in a discriminatory or inflammatory way, or with a simple pseudo-polite but out-of-touch mistake. I really think many of these errors also come from pointed paid political operatives for capitalistic churches.

Oh, and besides reporters, I think the real main audience will be people just looking for daily news about the church–news that’s not necessarily inspirational or sarcastic, but a neutral and mathematical survey. As always, please volunteer or contribute if it strikes you to do so.

Slowing down!

Colin Jensen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:57:53 +0000

It’s been hard to keep it up lately. I’m working on a few things, but none of them are launchable, and missing my deadlines is not appropriate. I’ve just been so overwhelmed by trying to live off a teacher’s salary this year, and more than that, being in an apartment (while I own a gorgeous house). I’m the type of guy that really would have thrived as a classical “client.” The patron-client relationship was the medieval and renaissance lord-artist relationship you picture from the movies. A rich “patron” (yes, same word as “padre,” but with the -on attached to mean “super-father”) would hire a “client”–basically an artist-in-residence–who would just be a sugar daddied artist. That’s where we get a lot of great art. And that’s what I need, because I’ve done a lot of amazing things for a lot of people, but really can’t thrive until I have some security. So I’ve gotta’ really build an empire of bread-and-butter so I can start using my real gifts. Maybe it’s just the beginning of mid-life-crisis #2 (or 3, depending on how you count it–but the one you get when you’re 35). In any case, I promise to have some businesses up soon and to upgrade some of my earlier ones. There’s demand, and I’m just not filling it, and that’s not right. ScriptureForum.Net is on track to get 1200 uniques this month (in it’s 3rd month!), and it only has half its chapters live.

So I again need partners, investors, patrons, and an energy drink. And I need to get to work–no, literally, it’s 7:57.

#14: SafariPetShop.com

Colin Jensen — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:58:13 +0000

One of my friends owns a pet shop. I offered to find a way to partner with him on a website, and this was a neat opportunity. I created SafariPetShop.com. At first I created safaripetSTORE.com, forgetting to check google trends, which yelled that “Pet Shop” is way more popular than “Pet Store.” I know, if you drill it down to the US, the leap isn’t so great; but it justifies buying both domains and redirecting one. This business really is exciting for many reasons. First off, I have a partner. We haven’t formalized an equation yet, but basically I pitched the following simple formula: I get 1) 100% of the profit from 2) the first visit of 3) any walk-in traffic who comes from the site; PLUS 100% of the profit directly from the site itself. So it requires no investment on his part, it just gives me a piece of the value I create and nothing else. So if nothing ever happens, no one is out anything, and if someone comes in to buy a dog, I get $100-ish, and John gets all the dog food and supplies revenue ad infinitum. Yes, this measurement is both subjective and requires that I trust him to know where his foot traffic comes from and to hunt me down and pay me; which is why it may not be extensively duplicable. But I trust him.

Really, designing any business a website in exchange for our owning the website seems really win/win, and itself a business. The site is another Wordpress install, this time with a plugin called GetWIKI that will scrape open-sourced articles about pets into categories, and an aStore syndicating a catalog of pet related products. So the next exciting part of this business: it has a storefront! I used an Amazon aStore, and you have to click onto the site to see it. It’s not elegant and I didn’t take the time to embed it correctly–it’s just there, but I eyeball matched the colors, and it has hundreds of products. So if someone finds my site and buys a $5 bottle of shampoo, I get $0.25. Probably John’s wife will keep the site updated, with new articles, new products to the aStore, etc.

So there are two forms of revenue driving this site, an auto-evolving eCommerce store, a partnership with a walk-in store, a simple and non-Colin-centric content base on the website–it should go beautifully and definitely evolves my formula–I mean, I at this point assume every website I do from now on will involve an aStore or something similar.

I also spent some time valuating RAMPrint this week for multiple buyers (not just for the website, but for the parent company), which is the real reason I put up PrintShopForSale.net.

New Testament is up on ScriptureForum.Net

Colin Jensen — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:22:05 +0000

There are 260 chapters in the New Testament, and I have now cut and pasted all 260 into ScriptureForum.Net. While I haven’t had any active traffic to that site yet, I have had a few positive inquiries from businesspeople. That’s code for people who make businesses happen with their resources. Real traffic is starting to build, too, with 73 unique visitors in February, and 394 thusfar in March! So once someone, anyone, gets the hint that it’s alright to reply to a post and start a discussion, it’ll ignite. Again, it just has to–it makes too much sense. I also, having the site built out this far, started a discussion on phpbb.com offering my database to other sites. That will give links to my site on other sites, and will perpetuate the cause without spreading me too thin to be effective. The ads seem to be working well–they’re a) totally muted enough to be appropriate, and b) totally addictive to the end that I can never pass one by without mousing over it… Check them out.

#13: Print Shop for Sale

Colin Jensen — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:48:08 +0000

One of my backgrounds is in printing. And since my parents own a print shop (ergo ramprint.com), and are passively looking to sell it, I am spending a good amount of time advising them on their business and how to get it ready for sale. In any case, business is business, and 32 years of being directly or indirectly connected to the copy shop industry, business school, and my resume, qualify me to consult. Add to that my parents, with 50 and 40 successful years running a dominant print shop, or my sister, having largely taken over their business years ago, and I can assemble a one-in-a-thousand team which could provide a solid low-risk ROI to anyone interested. So my business model this week is to put up printshopforsale.net and take incoming phone calls. Print Shop for Sale is the name of a popular book on the topic, and obeying that book publicly should springboard me with some ancillary traffic.

Q1 Quarterly Report for BusinessAWeek.com

Colin Jensen — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:08:49 +0000

Okay, I just posted business #12, and it dawned on me that I am therefore 23% of the way through my Business A Week year! Yes, I may do it more than 52 weeks, but don’t tell my wife that. In the meantime, let me update you on where each business is at…

Business a Week - 304 visitors making 841 visits, roughly 100% growth this month, 16 site pages on google, 99 total mentions on google, top keyword: enfp. It’s been a blast, and there are sufficient ads along the side to monetize on its own.
RAMPrint.com - I don’t have access to these stats, but I know we have 59 site pages on google, 159 total mentions on google. People mention it.
OfficeSpares - 38 visitors making 39 visits, roughly 100% growth this month, 2 site pages on google, 337 total mentions on google, top keyword: spares. No mention from anyone, we’ll see how this goes. I got one email of someone suggesting a place that might have a spare phone system, but they didn’t.
F00Music.com - 113 visitors making 460 visits, roughly 200% growth this month, 4 site pages on google, 28 total mentions on google, top keyword: foomusic. Starting to get traffic, need to organize the monetization.
ENFP Consulting - 39 visitors making 40 visits, roughly 500% growth this month, 1 site pages on google, 7 total mentions on google, top keyword: enfp. Most of the hits are from mid-life crisis ENFPs, but I have billed about $1000 via ENFP Consulting.
The Invitations Expert - 196 visitors making 447 visits, roughly 350% growth this month, 14 site pages on google, 42 total mentions on google, top keyword: wedding. One of my favorites, and so little traffic relative to its potential. I guess I need to make the salespitch a bit more overt, and I need to post more. It is amazing that the highest traffic demographics come from LDS people…
ScriptureForum.net - 259 visitors making 372 visits, roughly 150% growth this month, 141 site pages on google, 136 total mentions on google, top keyword: site. This will take off as soon as I get a few people. Just a few to volunteer some labor building out the scripture sections, then it’ll go crazy. It’s too obvious not to. Anyone, of any religion, looking for a church oriented way to volunteer and build the kingdom from your living room?
QD Web Design - 17 visitors making 20 visits, roughly 100% growth per month, 4 site pages on google, 3 total mentions on google. I’m not sure which of my requests have directly come from this site–probably none, but we’ll see.
FilmClean - 41 visitors making 45 visits, roughly 300% growth per month, 2 site pages on google, 4 total mentions on google. Easy, duplicable, we’ll see.
Karate Consulting - 20 visitors making 32 visits, 1 site pages on google, 2 total mentions on google, top keyword: karate. Again, good energy but too new.
Fortibus Es - 44 visitors making 87 visits, 10 site pages on google, 14 total mentions on google, top keyword: es. One IM, we’ll see if it goes through.
The Union Statesman - new as of today!

I still need to

create a skeleton… this is all too much based on my ideas, and not a duplicable and perhaps eventually automatable formula
create forms for said skeleton
create channels in google adsense
fill out some of these sites–scriptureforum needs a lot before it’s truly professional
just put more time into them. These have been wonderfully successful for having not spent more than 6 hours on any of these businesses, but I’d really like to expedite the enlargement of my efforts…
find partners
find volunteers
find sponsors / donors / investors

Ideas anyone?

#12: The Union Statesman

Colin Jensen — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:26:20 +0000

I keep trying to migrate some models from Wordpress to Joomla or the like, but WordPress is so nice… I really have to get the unmanned shopping cart thing down… Okay, so this is my idea: I will start a news site and get it onto Google News. From there I’ll have a powerful soapbox to promote my other businesses, and a relatively secure promise that my posts will be transmitted globally within 24 hours of being written. The way I’ll do this is to write a post a day on a topic which is super-popular that day. I will find the list of potential topics on Google Trends. And I’ve got a powerful template (it won’t look like it at first) to drive it all. Okay, so find the words, choose the one remaining permutation of newspaper sounding names, build the site, and voilà: The Union Statesman, temporarily subtitled, “A ping from the zeitgeist since 1941.”

#11: Fortibus Es

Colin Jensen — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:16:12 +0000

O sibili siemgo. Fortibus es in aro. O nobili demis trux. Watis inem? Causand dux.”

That’s not Latin. It’s Dog Latin, a Macaronic Verse, meaning it’s English that’s written to sound like Latin, and a standard quote used by Latin Teachers to mess with their students. And I, Colin, am a living breathing Latin teacher. Yes, we still exist, and I can’t fathom why Latin isn’t required in every school in the nation. In any case, I am, as of right now, a Latin Tutor. Again, wordpress + adsense, but this time with Skype’s consulting service–where people can’t chat with you without plugging in their visa #. And thus fortibuses.com! I started this site today because I got an IM this morning from someone looking to pay me to Skype them Latin tutoring. I’m excited about this one… Up next, comprehending the new math. j/k

#10: Karate Consulting

Colin Jensen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:46:07 +0000

Here’s another consulting one, and one that would be a blast. Karate Consulting, the front end for a martial arts management consulting company. I’ve got the background and the skills, and I now have the prettiest website of any martial arts consulting company on the net. So tell me if you want to be a consultant with me, because I need a team. I know my competencies, but there’s always room for more if you have targeted gifts and know how to use them, especially if you’ve worked with a successful martial arts school. I think it’s bunk whenever people flatter themselves by saying “unless you’ve worked specifically in this industry, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” That’s just academically wrong, and so I’m open to people of all backgrounds, especially in a zero gravity capacity. And thus we are.

#9: FilmClean

Colin Jensen — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:42:43 +0000

My goal this week was to put up a site that was inherently retail based. My businesses up until now have been selling my information or services, and while it is easy to see how those fill a niche, they aren’t as scalable as they’ll eventually need to be to maintain a business a week. My ideal is still to have something strangers build and develop, supplementing products syndicated from Amazon or Doba or somewhere, and that still supplemented by ads. And once I get that skeleton down I can duplicate it multiple times. For now I spent a few hours today putting up a raw affiliate site, FilmClean.com. It’s not pretty in any way yet (and I need to start making these sites beautiful before I release them), but nonetheless it’s a site where you can click a product which I love and the world needs more of, and it’ll take you to a place where you can buy one, and I gets a cut. So I’ve added value to the world and the world has added value to me. But I’ve gotta’ add some content before Google will bring me customers.

#8: Q.D. Web Design

Colin Jensen — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:34:08 +0000

One of the most common suggestions for a Business A Week business is that I start a web design company. Because launching a professional website a week really hones your skills at ripping out template-based self-maintaining sites. It’s gotten to the point that that’s what I do–it’s moving from “hobby” to “competency.” As such I hereby up QD Web Design. That’s not pronounced “cutey,” rather an acronym for “Quick & Dirty.” Because really that’s what I do… I can take any business, and put up a website that looks as professional as any of the ones I’ve mentioned within a coupla’ hours, and that means within $100 retail. If I get good, I can probably hit a price point of $50. So if you need a website or blog, pop me $50 and it’s yours. I’ll probably, in a business sense, make some money upselling maintenance or registering the domain or reselling hosting… For now, it’s design–design I tell you.

#7: ScriptureForum.Net

Colin Jensen — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:43:26 +0000

The downside of discussion boards, especially religious discussion boards, are the trolls. If I were to say “Mormon” right now, invariably someone who spends time combing the net for an opportunity to hate Mormons would comment on my post within an hour. There are more of those people than you perhaps realize… When I had a discussion board on colinandbethany.com, people used to always come onto our board and just write all kinds of unsolicited garbage, just for the freudiant thrills of polluting something someone finds sacred. We probably got more religious hate speech than pharmaceutical or porn-based spam. I eventually found one solution, which worked well–instead of having an open “religion” category, I cut and pasted each chapter of the scriptures as its own topic. The result of this is that the only way to say “so and so people believe such and such” was to say it as a response to the corresponding chapter of that group’s scripture. There was simply little way to exaggerate from there, and it scared away all the lazy people. I am resurrecting that idea as this week’s business, ScriptureForum.Net. I will have to cut and paste close to 2000 chapters of scripture (please volunteer to help), structure it effectively, and find traffic. The revenue will come from ads along the side. I know, too many of my businesses are passive ad-models, but I still believe once we hit 52 businesses we’ll be glad it’s that way… I promise, soon I’ll do an overt sales-based ecommerce business. Thanks for reading, and please comment below.

The One Year Book of Mormon

Colin Jensen — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:52:58 +0000

Okay, just to get the writing back in black, here’s a business I won’t do: We went to a large Christian bookstore the other day, and it was neat. It was exactly like any Deseret Book in Utah, except for one thing: (doubly embedded colons, so pay attention), Mormons don’t use a variety of brands of scripture. I’m not talking a lot of translations, just more than one brand would sometimes be nice. Over the past few years, secondary brands have begun to appear, with illustrations and economies of scale in production, but not en masse yet. Yet while walking through this store and seeing a variety of Biblical delivery methods–again, not translations, I mean all the Franklin-planner-looking Bibles, all the mp3 Bibles, etc.; I couldn’t help but wonder when someone will produce a Book of Mormon divided into 365 consumable chunks. Those publishing a Bible which divides the 1189 chapters of the Bible (or 260 NT chapters) by 365 days have proven successful and ubiquitous, and it is inevitable before someone strikes it rich by doing the same with The Book of Mormon. So, someone who reads this, do it, send me a copy, and good luck.

Speaking of which, let me plug this simple scripture calculator. Whatever book of scripture you’re reading, you just punch in where you’re at and where you want to be by which date, and it outputs a calendar for you.