3 ms·

Well they were obviously good choices for john carmack and others. For just me though, being a solo person, developing 3d models didnt really help me make money

Well they were obviously good choices for john carmack and others. For just me though, being a solo person, developing 3d models didnt really help me make money. Granted, it gave me a huge understanding of complex topics at a young age which saturated my interest and allowed me to pursue my obsession and do a number of successful technical things later, but my focus just wasn't quite there. It was 90% there, but not the 10% that it needed. It is difficult to explain.. For example, I used to do media buying. Back then, it was too easy to make money via online advertising. Any halfwitted idea would yields you tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. I actually owned a site dedicated to games that had a HUGE amount of visitors, and yet it never occured to me to put ads on it (not just putting ads on my site either, but pursuing online advertising ventures). I also could have easily made and promoted some sites to fill certain niches given certain circles I was a part of (back then there were so many ideas not yet put into place). Instead it just didn't occur to me. I have a lot of friends that started half-assed ideas back then in that era and now have millions of dollars. Thats not to say no skill was involved, it was just the chances then were MUCH higher than now, almost to the point where if you started then you probably would have something to show for it by now, if you were even halfway tactful with your strategies and implementation - which is something I know I could have been. EDIT: I'm not talking strictly about the paypal era I suppose, my mind is drifting to a bit earlier, in the days of google being new, etc.

brador 14y ago
Interesting. How were you holding up the bandwidth costs on the gaming site without ads? Donations? Are you allowed to say the domain? Although it looks like any idiot could have made money back then, and relative to today I would agree, their is some survivor bias in play when talking to those who made it back then. It wasn't that easy. Lastly, any examples of those half assed ideas that hit big? Even the niches if you can't name particulars. I'd argue the chances of success in a single field were much higher back then, but the breadth of opportunities and ease of getting started is higher in the modern day. Domain and cloud server for $20 and you're in the game.
- TallboyOne 14y ago
  My site is long long gone. I think about a year ago I tried to find anything related to it and all I found was a gif logo I made hosted somewhere. I can't even find it on my harddrive anymore.. so who knows maybe my site is 100% vanished into the ether.. maybe theres a copy of it somewhere in a dark corner of the world on a dusty unix box, but who knows. And yes I'm probably biased, but at least if I would have tried back then and failed -- I would have had lessons to learn from and would still be better off. Without never having tried during those early golden years though I just feel like a fool. As for examples of other ideas... I know a few domainers who bought up a whole slew of domain names back then and now are sitting on a fortune. Look at any affiliate marketer that is well known and chances are they started during that period when you could keyword stuff, game SEO extremely easily, buy ads on a site and making a fortune, etc. Lots of blood sweat and tears is required with online marketing (which is why I no longer pursue it), but compared to now, back then was a cakewalk.

brador 14y ago

Interesting. How were you holding up the bandwidth costs on the gaming site without ads? Donations? Are you allowed to say the domain? Although it looks like any idiot could have made money back then, and relative to today I would agree, their is some survivor bias in play when talking to those who made it back then. It wasn't that easy. Lastly, any examples of those half assed ideas that hit big? Even the niches if you can't name particulars. I'd argue the chances of success in a single field were much higher back then, but the breadth of opportunities and ease of getting started is higher in the modern day. Domain and cloud server for $20 and you're in the game.

TallboyOne 14y ago
My site is long long gone. I think about a year ago I tried to find anything related to it and all I found was a gif logo I made hosted somewhere. I can't even find it on my harddrive anymore.. so who knows maybe my site is 100% vanished into the ether.. maybe theres a copy of it somewhere in a dark corner of the world on a dusty unix box, but who knows. And yes I'm probably biased, but at least if I would have tried back then and failed -- I would have had lessons to learn from and would still be better off. Without never having tried during those early golden years though I just feel like a fool. As for examples of other ideas... I know a few domainers who bought up a whole slew of domain names back then and now are sitting on a fortune. Look at any affiliate marketer that is well known and chances are they started during that period when you could keyword stuff, game SEO extremely easily, buy ads on a site and making a fortune, etc. Lots of blood sweat and tears is required with online marketing (which is why I no longer pursue it), but compared to now, back then was a cakewalk.