BML - Edition 29

My first online business

Here's the story behind my first online business.

You'll hear how I started it, how it freed me from my 9-5 job, and how I eventually sold it.

It was a beer website. I educated beer enthusiasts about beer styles, beer history, and how to brew.

(What can I say? I was fresh out of college, and beer was often around.)

The website generated income from two primary sources, which I'll go into detail about next week.

First, why did I start this beer website?

From the outside, my decision to start it appeared strange. After all, I had just achieved a major life goal—I landed a promising career.

All through elementary school, middle school, high school, undergrad, and finally, graduate school, I worked my butt off.

Now, it'd paid off.

My professor introduces me to a local company and tells them they should hire me for its new job opening. The company listens and welcomes me aboard.

It's a good career. Warm people, good salary, and I had my very own office in a historic building in a picturesque Virginia town.

Who wouldn't be happy?

Yet, that very first day, when I sat down at my desk, and felt everything was so . . . quiet . . . I said to myself, "My time here is limited."

I knew myself. And with the excitement in the world and the ideas gushing from my brain—I knew that office wouldn't hold me.

This was 2008, and the internet was beginning to explode with opportunity.

Suddenly, you weren't forced to take the traditional path in life. You could work from your laptop while traveling the world.

I read Tim Ferriss's The Four Hour Work Week and that became the tipping point. I was going to start something on the internet.

But what?

I knew I wanted to do something with beer. It's a fun hobby, and you should absolutely grab a friend a brew a batch one day. You'll love it.

I wanted to share my love for homebrewing while scratching my entrepreneurial itch.

But how would I combine beer + the internet?

For some reason, I convinced myself the site had to be a social network. Think of Facebook, but for beer enthusiasts. 

Good idea, right? Maybe, but how the heck do you build a website like Facebook? And how do you make money from it? Plus, if you're a beer enthusiast, why not just join one of the thousands of beer groups available on Facebook?

These are good questions I wish I'd more deeply considered.

I spent one year building "Facebook for beer enthusiasts" before finally scrapping the idea. Fortunately, I was broke and didn't shell out the $30,000 this company kept hounding me to pay them to build it.

I had some computer programming experience and attempted to build the website myself, but eventually hit a brick wall.

I switched business models and that proved pivotal.

If you think about it, what kind of business is Facebook? It's a software business. That's what I was building with my beer social network—a software business.

Everything clicked when I switched to a writing business.

Instead of launching a social network, I launching a blog. Instead of coding software, I educated and entertained.

Yes, everything changed when I sat down and began to write.

Next week, I'll tell you how I used writing to get my beer website off the ground. Writing helped me attract me first website visitors and allowed me to build an email list. I'll also share how I made my first sale, which occurred two years after this whole adventure began.

I'll share more of my missteps, too. Plenty of those.

My online business eventually succeeded and bought my freedom. But man, what a journey.

See you next Monday with the next chapter.

Rooting for you,

Billy