I want somewhere to record my thoughts on starting this website. What goes into it, what I want to post about, site design, how much money I’m losing or making, just a place for my unfiltered thoughts. I know I like to see the development and the process of things that are successful and I hope that if this website turns into a success some of you might find all this nonsense interesting. I also don’t have much of a community to talk about things related to this field, and I’m not very vocal in real life anyway, so I guess we can call this an outlet. BTW, it seems one of the toughest parts about being a “solopreneur” is the loss of the social aspect that you would otherwise deal with everyday at a “normal” job. But I’ll save that for another post.
As far as these posts go, no SEO, no pretty pics, no consistency, no proper grammar, nothing. Straight documentation of the awesome and shitty parts of this journey that I somehow became obsessed with. I guess this is the, and I hate this word, bloggy part of my blog. Oh well. Here’s how it all started:
I started creating websites in 2014. I was deployed to Kuwait at the time when I found Pat Flynn’s podcast from his website Smart Passive Income. I was hooked. I knew after I got out of the Air Force I wanted to be my own boss and creating website(s) seemed to check every box. I majored in electrical engineering, so I had definitely been interested in technology, the internet, and computers for a while. I also saw it as a way to be totally mobile and work from wherever I wanted. That is if I could ever make enough money doing it.
I first created a website, which I still have, to help military members calculate how much money they’ll get reimbursed from the government when moving from base to base. If you play your cards right you can make a profit and that’s what my site essentially calculates. I spent like 30 hours maybe getting the site up and running and have done very little since. I threw up some Adsense on the page and it makes about $70/month. It get’s like 10,000 visitors a month so I know it could probably make more money but I guess I want it to be more of just a helpful tool than a business.
Anyways, after I created that website I really started researching how to make more money and potentially do that as a living. Well I did all the keyword research and all that and ended up settling on a low competition subject that I was fairly interested in to make a new website about. My crappie fishing website was born. Easily several hundred hours went into that site, publishing helpful, detailed articles and trying to get as many subscribers as I could. It did ok. I got up to several thousand visitors a month and a couple hundred email subscribers. It made maybe $80/month from the Amazon Affiliate Program. But I became tired about writing about fishing, especially about only one fish. On top of that I was living in California where it was hard to actually get out to a lake/reservoir that wasn’t dry and fish. I just lost motivation. So I sold the site (for $1100) and began to look for my next adventure.
I could easily write a book on figuring out what we should do with our lives. Problem is, it would have no ending because I still don’t know. I do know, however, I love eating and learning about food and some of my happiest times are at restaurants drinking and eating with family and friends. So why not “follow my passion” and make a website about that? Despite the whole follow your passion thing often not being a good idea (another post), I did it anyways. I mean I think this is my passion. I have like 19 hobbies so how do I know this is my passion? Not sure, but I’m going for it. I’m all in.
So, I started this site on 7 July 2017 and have been spending most of my time getting it up and going since then. I’m living in Wisconsin now, closer to family, at my dad’s cabin up in central Wisconsin by myself. It gets a little lonely at time but damn I can get a lot of shit done. So far I’ve put up 6 articles/recipes. That may not be a lot to some but I am sloooooow at writing. My goal for this site is to provide an uncluttered, visual, un-wordy, scientifically accurate website for people who love meat, cheese, and fermented foods.
The last thing I want to do is be in this just for the money and throw up a bunch of shitty, shitty, articles in hopes to rank up in google. This is unfortunately the way my crappie fishing website after I sold it. And the way a lot of other shitty websites are being made. Can we not make the internet a less factually reliable place than it already is? Not saying my articles aren’t going to have the occasional inaccuracy but at least do a little research before you post something. And the marketing tactics, my god. There’s a fine line between good internet marketing and being a slimy black-hat spammer trying to bombard people with popups and trick people into giving them their email. I get so pissed every time I see this on a website.
Can you imagine going to the grocery store and having the employees hold random foods up right in front of your face “HEY YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WANT TO BUY THIS. BUY THIS!” Fuck pop-ups, seriously. I don’t care if they increase your click through rate. They destroy the user experience and therefore should not be used. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use pop-ups on your website. You do whatever you need to do. I’m just not going to have them here. WHEW! Man sometimes it feels good to straight up complain. Angry rant for the day complete.
Alright I’m done. For now.
Lol side note: I have a “readability” plugin installed and it basically says this article is unreadable. Haha I hope you could translate ok!