Over the last little while, I have come to realize that certain bloggers that have made it big online, have done so due to the money they had in their pocket from their full time job, selling a big name site, or through smart advertising and sponsorship partnerships.
Money makes becoming “famous” online easier.
Need server resources to launch a big application that will hopefully be as successful as Twitter? Make sure you have money. Want to run a really nice video production? Make sure you have some money.
Things aren’t cheap, and for the most part, unless you are super talented, having some money to back you up can make things a million times easier.
When I was a full time blogger working for various networks, I didn’t have to worry about how much money the site was bringing in. I didn’t have to worry about how much server resources I was taking up. I didn’t have to concern myself with very much other than the content, and now that I am running various blogs and paying a small group of writers a reasonable fee, I am finding that worrying about all the minutia can be very stressful.
It becomes a question of paying writers or giving up on the dream, and that isn’t a fun decision to have to make. So far, I have continued to move forward but with uncertainty with my wife’s career, I might have to reassess my goals when it comes to my personal projects.
People are always surprised when I tell them that I don’t have a cell phone, I rarely go out anywhere, and most of the gadgets I own were given to me as perks from my various jobs or inexpensive equipment that I desperately needed.
For someone that loves technology, I live a life surrounded by very little of it, as I continually focus on building my personal brand online and constantly re-invest in myself online.
By now, I am sure you have a list in your mind of a million people that have “made it big” online without having much money to their name, and if you re-read the article, you will notice I never made mention of how much money makes things easier.
The fact is that the amount of money you need to make things easier online differs from person to person and project to project.
I doubt you can list many successful people online that didn’t at least spend some money on their projects to make them successful. Hosting, staff, domains, custom WordPress theme, statistics packages, premium plugins or custom coding all cost money, and spending this money on other things will hopefully free up time and give you a better competitive edge over the millions of others on the same journey as you.
A good example of this to me is Geek Brief, a video podcast about technology that I really enjoy. Without investing in equipment for the show, would it have ever risen to be as popular as it is today? What about all of the shows on Revision3? Sure they started out with reasonably low budget kind of look, but now they have a huge studio for their shows, and are investing in bringing more shows on board.
Finding ways to make the money you need to re-invest in yourself, your personal brand and your projects can definitely be difficult, frustrating, and tiring, but those that do seem to be able to get further faster than those that don’t.
Originally posted on June 10, 2008 @ 11:51 am