Rohail Rizvi

I just recently got on board with Text Link Ads (TLA) and am glad to announce that you will now be able to purchase links on this site. Links are going for $25 right now, but I have a feeling they will be going for much more at the next PR update.

• Sign up with Text Link Ads using my referral code please (this means that I get $25 commission in your support for my blog!)
• Click on “Buy Links.”
• Search for “rutgers” in the searchbar of TLA (This blog- Entrepreneur in the Making- should show up by that search) and order either a text link or an RSS ad or both if you want optimal exposure for your site.
• Complete the payment process and I will approve your ad which will appear instantaneously here in the sidebar and feed of Entrepreneur in the Making .

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We’re very close to Walamu beta and it’s just a matter of time before the full site launches. First of all, I want to thank the entrepreneurs that are supporting me in getting this out there and participating in the Walamu contest. Among them:

Tom Barrett of www.leftofme.com

Dave Askaripour of www.mindpetals.com

Josiah Mackenzie of www.mypalpad.com

Saadh Shehzad of www.saadh.com

Jafar of www.jafarkay.blogspot.com

So far Tom Barrett of www.leftofme.com is certainly in the lead in terms of the contest, nevermind the self-acknowledged irrelevance of his website. But hey, I appreciate it all the same. Good luck and if anyone still wants to join there is still time. The contest ends August 21, 2006. Also, thanks to all the beta testers that are lined up to take their first test drive of Walamu, it’s truly exciting to see.

As for the sail boat, I’m just reminding myself that I’m about to leave the dock and it’s soon going to be time to eat, breathe, and sleep business. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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I haven’t been able to post a lot about what I’ve been doing lately because much of it has to do with specialized marketing tactics for Walamu, which I can’t reveal just yet. I will say though that we’re making progress and should even have a Beta fairly soon.

Today was good…I actually learned quite a bit. I wanted to make some extra cash so I went around door-to-door literally knocking on people’s doors to ask them if they would like me to fix up their computer so it runs faster. I handed them a flyer with all the information on it, but ended up shorthanded in gaining customers. I went to about 30 houses and couldn’t find a single customer. A lot of realization came out of this so I would actually consider this a positive experience. For one thing, I succeeded at finding out 30 different ways not to sell my services. Secondly, I realized after a couple of opening lines that if this line isn’t working, then it would be foolish to assume the same pitch would work with another person. So I kept altering my pitch and found some to work better than others. I tended to receive a flat response in the beginning, but towards the end I had customers asking me questions and saying they would hope to keep the flyer and call me back when they needed to do so.

Another realization was more market-based. I was in an upper-middle class neighborhood. So while these folks certainly had the cash, most of them were too highly educated as far computers went to pay for my services. In fact, I had a feeling a lot of them were computer engineers or computer savvy in other respects and already knew how to keep spyware from eating up their computer. So in those cases, it was like we both had a laugh seeing as they didn’t need my services by any means, but they were still amused to see my entrepreneurial spirit. If anyone is to take up on this business, I would highly suggest targeting wealthy folks whom aren’t so knowledgeable about computers, namely senior citizens in general.

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Just a quick update on things.

In my attempt to raise $500 in 15 days for my next project, although I haven’t garnered anything close to that, I have made a lot of progress in terms of projects initiated and getting the ball rolling on my most anticipated project.

So far, here are the numbers:

• Adsense (Mesosource): $26.77
• Pixel sales: $15
• eBay: $20
• Surprise check from my former boss: $124
• HaloTech: $50

Total: $235.77

I also sold my first red marker message yesterday on www.writeonmyboard.com.

Although I’m still far off from the $500 mark, I’ve learned that setting goals and deadlines can help you get a lot of things done a lot faster. My goals for the next few weeks:

• Read The Student Success Manifesto by Michael Simmons (currently half-way though) and The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.
• Have at least 1,000 unique visitors to the new pre-launch blog by the middle of July.
• Bring in at least $45 from www.writeonmyboard.com by the middle of July. (Brought in $36)
• Have all the pixel squares on this blog sold by the end of July. (No longer attempting, instead focusing on WoMB)
• Bring in at least $15 a week through Adsense (Mesosource) (Made $40 so far, haven’t been promoting)
• Convince parents that I am not being a bum by not getting a summer job. (The toughest challenge of all, we’ll see when that happens).

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Last night, I opened up a fresh dry erase board and began writing out my schedule for the summer.

And then it hit me. With the advent of the Internet, why not have the world’s largest spanning white board??

So then I came up with this:

Writeonmyboard.com- The World’s Largest Spanning Dry Erase Board Ad Space

Voila! Writeonmyboard.com- The World’s Largest Spanning Dry Erase Board. Just a spur of the moment inspiration. Let’s see how it does.

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The Principle

I remember reading about the Rhino Principle in Forbes Magazine a few months ago. The basic theme behind it is doing what the rhino does best: Charge! The rhino as an animal has survived for so many years because of its undying single-mindedness and natural aggressiveness towards achieving a single goal. The rhino is not particularly clever, nor is it unsusceptible to the other animals in the Savannah. However, it takes initiative when it sees something it wants and leaves all other thoughts of pessimism or doubt behind. Apply this same mindset in your own lives, whether it is as an entrepreneur or in any other aspect of your life. Take on that project you’ve been procrastinating on for months or ask that girl you’ve been meaning to talk to in your Chemistry class. Focus on a single goal and put all your energy into reaching that goal.

Stay Focused

As entrepreneurs, we sometimes have a tendency to do all things at once. We want to take on every little side project, approach every single potential contact, and at the same time become the next Microsoft or eBay. In reality, however, it makes much more sense to stick to that one project you have huge hopes for and put all your energy into that project. Don’t spread yourself out too thin, no matter how beneficial you may think your side projects may be. Nothing is more important than focusing on your most important project and giving it all you got.

Mini-Goals

You have high hopes for your project and you know where you eventually want to be with it. Whether you dream of one day going public or selling your company for millions of dollars, you probably have an idea of where you want to get with your project. However, it is absolutely essential that you set aside “mini-goals”; smaller goals that will help you get to your main one. While one can’t plan for everything, it is necessary for you tohave a plan , as well as goals detailing where you want to be with your project at what time. Do you want 10% market share in 5-years? Or do you want 30% market share in 5-years? It is crucial that you set up these mini-goals so you know how to gauge your progress. Further, make sure you apply the Rhino Principle to each one of your mini-goals to help you achieve your end goal.

I was able to find the original article published by Forbes Magazine http://www.forbes.com/work/free_forbes/2006/0130/031.html?partner=rss . I highly recommend that your read the entire article.

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You may have noticed the large block of pixels I just added to the sidebar. In an effort to get to my $500 goal in 15 days I realized I’m going to have to need another stream of income (or possibly more). I think this acts in two ways, however. With the many web entrepreneurs I know of that are releasing their sites this summer, I think it would be extremely beneficial for them to steal a spot or two on the pixel square. And at $7 $2 a square, it really is a steal. Considering this blog is reaching brand new all-time highs in terms of hits, you can’t go wrong with promoting your project here. With the recent inclusion of this blog to the Mind Petals network, the hits are going through the roof! There are fewer than normal squares available so hurry and grab yours before they’re all gone!

Although this open to any sort of website, and certainly does not have to be entrepreneurial in nature or business-related, ultimately I will filter out any sites I deem inappropriate.

E-mail me if you have any questions: RohailR [at] yahoo.com

Some stats:

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Entrepreneurship is one of those things that present endless opportunities and one of those is meeting some of the most driven, intelligent, and interesting people in the world. One of these opportunities presented itself today and I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from the Mind Petals Entrepreneur Network, featuring some of the youngest and brightest entrepreneurial minds at work. I am excited to be a part of the network and look forward to being able to share the work of my blog with now I’m sure a huge amount of like-minded individuals as the Mind Petals network continues to grow. I highly encourage you to check it out as you won’t be disappointed by the wealth of knowledge and the innovative minds of entrepreneurs that are already a part of the network.

Although entrepreneurship is something that is fairly new to me, somehow I always know that this would be the path for me. It’s something about that desire to break away from the ordinary and create something of your own all the while following your gut as to what you want to do in life. It’s also about being passionate about something. Surely, if I am going to build my own business that is my so-called “brain child” I am going to have much more passion and energy towards making sure that it is going to succeed than if I was working towards the same goals while working for someone else. I certainly want to put my heart into what I want to do in life and not follow someone elses dream. I really think I’m going in the right direction as far as what I want to do in life and I’m looking forward to jumping into every window of opportunity that comes at me.

In other news, I recently discovered Shopify after browsing Brian Balfour’s blog and decided to check it out. I must say, it’s extremely easy to set up a shop as I was able to do so within minutes. There is no hosting fee or shopping cart software fee at all and everything you need to open up a shop is there for you. Shopify provides PayPal as a means to collect revenue or you can set up a merchant account (for which there is a monthly fee and such). Everything looks really smooth and is way too nice for a few minutes of work. Shopify does charge 3% on whatever you do sell, so if you’re not making money, neither are they. I did set up a shop, although it’s not anywhere ready. I can’t accept any orders at this point as I am not fully set up with my supplier so I’m going to have to wait before I announce it.

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Wow what a day. Today I made $50 in less than 3 hours. I could have actually made it in an hour, but I didn’t want to leave my customer’s PC unfinished (in terms of removal of spyware). I started flyering in a pretty upscale neighborhood and by my fourth house I already had a customer! She saw me leaving the flyer and said she needed help with her computer. I had my first customer. So I went at it doing everything I needed to do and she offered me $50 after an hour even though I had told her I charged $15 an hour. I didn’t want to leave any problems on the computer so I stayed for three hours. Hey that’s 67% more than I made at my last job for six hours in only three hours. Not bad, I’d say.

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I didn’t really elaborate on www.mesosource.blogspot.com in one of my previous posts. The reason I picked “Mesothelioma” as the topic of choice for my blog was because after doing a lot of tweaking around on Adsense, I found that it was one of the most highly bid for keywords. When I say most highly bid for I’m talking $28-$42 per click and high search volume on the keyword to go along with it.

The way I researched the bids on particular keywords was by placing a mock ad campaign on Adwords after paying the initial $5 to start. I set my monthly campaign budget to something like the effect of $90,000 (of course I had the campaign on pause, this was just to allow all the highest bid for words to show up within my budget).

I then clicked on “Tools”, followed by “Keyword Tool.” This is where I entered all the keywords that I had heard of having high bids after doing a search on the web. Next, I clicked on “Estimate Search Traffic.” This is where I was able to learn the estimated bid for each one of the keywords I had entered. After seeing the profitability potential of “mesothelioma,” I proceeded to create a blog consisting of various open articles on the web. All it cost me was $5 as opposed to expensive software/lists on the web promising to do the same thing. Next thing I know, I’m up and running with www.mesosource.blogspot.com.

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