Posted on : 05-07-2006 | By : RohailR | In : Projects
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I have just completed registering Walamu as an official business as an LLC, or limited liability company. I was debating whether or not opt for an S-Corp instead, but came to realize an LLC was the best fit considering I am not looking to investors any time soon and nor would I benefit from the tax advantages an S-Corp offers considering none of the income would be distributed to anyone but myself. With an S-Corp, the self-employment tax is only applied to the income of the owner, whereas with an LLC the self-employment tax is applied to the entire income of the company. Further, an LLC allows much more flexibility, costs less, and involves much less paperwork. It cost $125 to register the business as an LLC and I believe it is well-worth it.
I have begun a heavy marketing campaign for Walamu, one which will increase in its broadness as launch time approaches. I’ve figured out a unique way to leverage Facebook to initiate a sort of viral marketing that costs about $1 per 40 guaranteed targets. I’m not talking about Facebook flyers either, although those are very effective as well. It seems like it’s getting a pretty good response and people are interested in what Walamu is all about. Further, I was recently interviewed by Dustin of Street-Blaze.com about Walamu; the interview can be found here.
In other news, adpunch.org recently surprised me with a review on Writeonmyboard.com found here. I was very pleased with that and only found out after seeing a huge spike in hits and found out adpunch.org was the majority referring link. Although, I’ve been working on Walamu primarily, I haven’t forgotten about Writeonmyboard. I recently submitted a press release to The Star Ledger, New Jersey’s most popular newspaper, and am hoping to gain a lot of attention from that if it does indeed get published. One thing I’m upset about, however, is that I paid $75 for an ad to be submitted for Writeonmyboard in the Cool Site of the Day webmaster newsletter and it seems as though my pockets have been picked. I have not received a single e-mail since my purchase, nor the requested refunds. If I don’t get anything in the next few days, I’m going to have to talk to PayPal about it.
Posted on : 01-07-2006 | By : RohailR | In : Projects
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but we just couldn’t help ourselves. Walamu is comin’ at you fast and is going to change your college experience. You’re thinking how could getting better deals on textbooks really change my college experience? The truth is sure, Walamu’s gonna help you put a little more money in your pocket, but we want to do more than that. Walamu wants to make your college years what college is really about.Walamu is well-poised to be the world’s largest college listing network. Walamu is going to be the number one place to get what you need. Period. If you need a new desk, come to Walamu. If you need a new laptop. If you need a cheap haircut, COME TO WALAMU. We say this with great pride as we want your college years to be memorable and not tied up in things you would rather not be tied up in. Most of the time you only get four years to enjoy what college has to offer. Why waste it on mediocre tasks when you can get what you want at Walamu?Sure we still want you to be able to get your textbooks at great prices. But we also want you to be able to find/sell whatever it is you need to without the hassle. This brings a new era for the college student. Walamu will change the way college students get things done as it becomes the number one market to buy, sell, or find whatever it is that you need to.We can’t let the cat out of the bag just yet, but be excited, very excited, about what Walamu is going to mean to you in the very near future as it becomes the world’s largest college listing network.
Check out the Pre-Launch Blog
here.And the Walamu Myspace group
here.
In the past few weeks I’ve really spread my energy over a multitude of things. Among these include starting www.writeonmyboard.com, the Walamu pre-launch blog, this blog, and the pixel ads. Right now the most important thing is getting Walamu off the ground so that’s what I’m going to be focusing on the most. I’m really excited about the launch and focused on getting out there quickly and executing as well as possible.
As for my stocks, I made a few changes yesterday. I sold two of my stocks at a loss only because I needed the funding for Walamu and I knew I wasn’t going to make much anyway considering my position in both stocks was very small. If I had at least $1,000 invested in each company I probably would have held on. Nonetheless, one of my stocks FMD is nearing $60 as I had predicted in one of my previous posts. I am still holding on to this stock as I believe it has the potential to go a bit higher.
I also just finished reading The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, by Al Ries and Laura Ries. The book is a must-read for anyone wanting to start an Internet business. I’ve learned a lot about what to do and what not to do from this and have even been talking to the authors about my own business. That’s it for now, but stay tuned because Walamu is going to be a heck of a ride.
Posted on : 22-06-2006 | By : RohailR | In : Projects
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The Walamu pre-launch blog is officially up and running. Walamu is the fastest and cheapest way for students to get what they need. Walamu makes it a breeze for students to get the textbooks they need without spending hundreds at their local book store or worrying about running back-and-forth to the post office. The service takes a common sense approach to an expensive problem and makes it easy for students to find the books they need without the hassle nor the outrageous costs. Stay tuned for more updates and keep track of Walamu, the fastest and cheapest way for students to get what they need, at www.walamu.com.
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).
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.
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:
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.
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.
I’m in the preliminary steps of getting my spyware removal business off the ground. It shouldn’t take too long. I’ve got the flyer done, I just need to run to Staples to get copies of it made. Initially, I’ll be doing all the flyering myself but as time goes on I’ll hire people to do that depending on how profitable this gets. Here’s the flyer, let me know what you think:
