Looking Back At 2009

Jan 6, 2010 by

I thought it would be a good idea for both you and I if I were to recap 2009 on this blog. 2009 was a very crazy year for me… business model change, recession, coding, and stress are a few words that come up when I think of 2009.

Instead of writing a bunch of BS like “I had a great year because…” or “2009 was a bad year because..” I will post my company earnings for the year and then explain some big changes that happen during the year.

Overview of My Career

When I first started my company I made content based websites that used SEO to gain free traffic, and then I monetize the websites using advertising. As time went on content based websites started making me less and less money every month. In 2007 I launched by first real e-commerce site which was BuyBlogComments.com (I had other smaller sites, but I consider that one my first real one because the backend is custom coded.). Then during the years of 2007-2008 I slowly moved my business model from advertising revenues to e-commerce sales. In 2008 I got really focused and learned php along with making better business decisions. I focused my attention on 3 aspects of my business which are;

1. Backend Reporting: I created a backend that gives me up-to-date reporting on all of my main projects. It has been very very useful.

2. DeveloperHut: I focused a lot of my attention on building up DeveloperHut to make it so I can use my own services. I want to be able to use my own services to market my other e-commerce websites.

3. Network Of E-Commerce Websites: I found out that diversity is my safety net. Not only do I run DeveloperHut but I have my own network of e-commerce websites that make 50% of my revenues (or so… keep reading).

I really didn’t get to focused on those 3 aspects until August of 2008, since that time I have devoted 110% of my attention to those 3 aspects so I can build up a proper company.

Overview Of 2009

During the year of 2009 I got a few things done;

1. Changed Business Models: I dont make much money at all from YPN, Google Adsense, or anything else like that now. I now make my money from e-commerce stores.

2. DeveloperHut Completed: I still have a bunch of work left to do on this website, however I feel that I have developerhut right were I want it, all I need to do now is increase efficiency, increase marketing, increase quality on products, and add new products. In 2009 I build the whole backend from scratch, added like 10 new products, and got the current system down to a science… in other words I got the website infrastructure finished.

3. Network Of E-Com Sites Done: As of now I have a small network of online stores that are 100% done. It took me all of 2009 to get them set up and turning a profit. I still have lots of work to do, but now I get to focus my attention into marketing them and making more money from them.

The Chart

The chart below is the gross revenue for all of my projects combined. I started this February and some of the chart is wrong, but it is close enough for now (when I get some time I will update the bad code that produces the chart). So the chart below is the months February-December.

Small Recap Of 2009

March: From March – June it was rough. That was the time that rev was low because I was switching from content-based websites to e-commerce stores. March was the month that I first started setting up my network of e-commerce websites. At that time DeveloperHut was still a new company and the backend wasn’t that advanced at all. During that time I spent most of my days working my ass off on coding and building up products, along with diversifying ways that profit comes in.

May: If you haven’t noticed…May was my worst month! The reason is because I was having trouble with a merchant, which made earnings go way down. It took me 3 weeks to find a merchant and get business going again. I have learned a valuable lesson there and I now diversify my merchant accounts.

June – July: I got the merchant problem sorted and started using adwords and SEO to rank my e-commerce stores… thus traffic and sales go up.

August: This was one of my most stressful months, besides the first 5 months of 2009 haha. During this time I diversified my e-commerce stores and broken them down to smaller websites that focus on certain niches within the niche (if that makes sense). During this time I had a small problem with one of my adwords campaign which hurt sales for 2 weeks, which accounts for the slight downside, which also goes into Sept a little. Also during this time I launched most of the major products on DeveloperHut, which meant a LOT of coding.

October: October was a good month, I got everything sorted and sales were pretty steady. However I maxed out Adwords spending for ALL of my stores. I focus on small niches that dont get to much traffic, so its easy for me to max out the traffic I can get from adwords. I have had the same campaigns running since March, so during the time from March – October I was continuously editing my campaigns to increase traffic and decrease the costs, and at the same time making sure that I am profiting.

November – December: Both of these months were pretty good, however I would have liked to have a steady increase in revenue during that time… so I guess I failed there. During this time I was focused on finishing up the DeveloperHut backend so I can hire someone for customer support. I also started getting really heavily into the SEO work for all of my websites, I am guessing that it will take 2-3 months before that work starts to pay off, so sadly revenue didn’t go up that month from all of that work

So looking at the chart you can say that I had a good year.. well I had a fine year, but I have a lot of work to do before I am happy with my online work. During the months of June – Now I would focus my attention on just one aspect of the business instead of all of the aspects, in other words I was spreading myself to thin. I worked my ass of during that time to automate as much as I can so I can focus on everything else. Because of that problem my revenues from each aspect would fluctuate each month. An example; lets say the DeveloperHut part makes $10,000 per month and the e-commerce stores make $10,000 per month which means that my company makes $20,000 per month. That means that each aspect was making 50% of the total revenue.

Right now each aspect fluctuates every month, I am currently spread to thin and I need to hire someone for customer support so I can focus on the big picture. If I can focus my attention to both aspect equally I know that my business will increase revenue by 40-50% this year. I know this because each aspect fluctuates so much each month. An example is instead of each aspect making $10,000 each which is 50% of the total revenue, but instead of each aspect making 50% of the total revenue every month, it is something like 70/30 one month, and then the very next month it would be like 40/60. The 70 part of the 70/30 of $20,000 is $14000… and the 60 part of the 40/60 is $12000.

So because of each aspect fluctuating (and developing a pattern) I can get a good idea of how much I can make on each aspect if I could focus my attention solely on marketing and building the business. From the above example we have 2 numbers, which are $14000 and $12000. Lets say that I am making $20,000 per month now, and if I max out the marketing for each aspect (and also focus my attention on them) I would be making $26000 per month, which is a 30% increase.

So as I move into the year 2010 I know that I can increase my revenues easily, but I have lots and lots of work to do before I get there. 2009 was a good year because I got my businesses infrastructure completed, now I get to focus my attention to the marketing aspect. However, 2009 was one of the most stressfully years of my life, I worked all the time and was always stressed about something. But as you can see I got everything going well…. now I can relax and have some fun by focusing my attention on the marketing part of the business… which is what I love to do.

So there you go, a recap of last year. Let me know your thoughts, I read all comments posted here