Tax Time...

So, tommorrow I have an appointment to go over my taxes. I haven't started putting them all together yet, so I may not be blogging much today or tomorrow ;)

I make most of my profits from this site, but in many ways this site has thrust so much opportunity on me that it is mind boggling. In the past I wasted many great opportunities by lying to myself about what I am good at and where I should focus my efforts.

Recently I decided to expand my business and web presence significantly beyond this site, realizing that I can't do everything I want to if I do it all on my own, and that having a vested interest in many other ideas will help me learn. The main desire to expand comes from wanting a broader knowledge base and experience base. While I could do really well by just focusing on this site I think the stuff I will learn from getting a much more broad experience set will increase my understanding of the web, marketing, and business in general.

Here are some of the cookie jars I have put my hands in over the past few months (most cookie jars involve at least 1 friend partnering):

  • buying a few old websites (been doing this on my own, though got some cool ideas from chatting with Jim Boykin and Stuntdubl)

  • creating lots of content for them (hired one friend to make some content, hired another friend to fix broken links and write content, and partnered with a friend for some of the other content)
  • starting 2 content networks (this is going unfortunately slow, largely due to resource limits, especially when compared to the instant ROI provided by the older more established sites)
  • buying Threadwatch and then taking DaveN on as a partner
  • trying to learn affiliate marketing a bit more aggressively (while he doesn't talk too much about it in public, Andy Hagans is a bad ass at it for being somewhat new to that market)
  • partnering with a friend to try to make a social network (I think I have a good idea with this, and a good viral marketing idea)
  • partnering with a friend to try to make another network (this one is just a bit out there. I would be a minority stake holder in it. Am chatting with the majority guy to try to make it pretty innovative, but they are being a bit more traditional than my uber idealistic - and perhaps a bit flawed for being a bit too idealistic - original idea.)
  • hiring a programmer - I think it would be cool to have a full time programmer to make lots of random fun or good ideas. I am sure eventually as I get further into the affiliate stuff he will help come up with some cool content ideas.
  • ownership stake in 3 companies (one of which may already be in the hurt locker, but the second and third could not be looking any brighter)
  • that second company has more potential profit in its first month than I made in all of 2004, largely because I joined up with an absolutely kick ass partner
  • the third company could be much larger than the second
  • working on some rather large client projects

So hopefully I will post saturday...think I am going to turn IM and email off so I can start on taxes ;)

Published: April 6, 2006 by Aaron Wall in aaron matthew wall

Comments

Cygnus
April 6, 2006 - 4:55pm

I love that you're getting your tentacles in every business opportunity available -- I started doing that a couple years ago too and it has really worked out well...letting complete control and just taking percentages was one of the best things I did.

BTW, I hope that your records are solid; backtracking money through multiple entities can be such a huge pain.

Amber
April 6, 2006 - 8:38pm

I think a perfect example of buying old sites is rlrouse.com. Only reason I know about this site is because my husband used to sell birdhouses there years back. Now-a-days it's a affilate / adsense site, gets great ranking for "seo" of all things.. If only I knew then SEO would consume my life I would have bought it when I had the chance! I thought if I made him his own site, own domain he would get more traffic, more sales.. boy was I wrong.. still trying to get him to come up for "bird houses"

April 6, 2006 - 8:55pm

And you still find time to blog how?

Mike
April 7, 2006 - 2:30am

That's cool, but how do you reconcile it with this:
http://www.aaronwall.com/archives/000737.html#comments

April 7, 2006 - 11:27pm

This post really hit home for me. On content networks, it would be fun to build something like ehow.com or another about.com. I've also started looking at old web sites to buy.

April 8, 2006 - 2:20am

Hey Aaron,

Great to hear that you are at last expanding your business and taking on other people!

I am certain that you will be able to do more for more people this way.

All the best,

Alec

PS. Maybe that programmer could fix comment notification on Threadwatch when he gets a spare moment, hein?

April 8, 2006 - 2:26am

Love the new look to the site and fresh logo.

Super and subtle enough makeover.

April 9, 2006 - 12:38am

No real estate investments? They're much better from a tax standpoint, and if you partner with the right people, the profits are pretty nice too.

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