Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Simple tools

Do not wait; the time will never be "just right'. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as
you go along.
--Napoleon Hill

One could argue against this for many situations, sure. And I was about to, but then I remembered when I started Domai. I started it with only the knowledge of web design I could get from two or three magazine articles. And just had fun with it.
And then traffic started coming, which really encouraged me. (I clearly remembered the day I was told I had 5,000 visitors a day.) (Over ten years ago.)
And later when I made it a commercial site (it was never meant to be), I also did it with primitive tools. But early sales then encouraged me to go on, and to make it better.
If I had tried get everything up to a top pro standard before launch, I would never have had the energy to keep going.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And if you hadn't, you might not be buying too many Hasselblad 500C cameras. :)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

You said it.

Anonymous said...

"I would never have had the energy to keep going."

We're thankful that you do.
(Merry belated Christmas and Happy New year as well!)

captcha: dilytos

Don Laster Jr said...

And I for one have enjoyed the site for around 10 years and plan to for a long time. Eolake has produced a classic girl watcher site that is the gold standard.

Ron said...

Hill does have a point.

I built my first websites with software from a PC magazine cover CD, graduated to MS FrontPage and, later, Dreamweaver.

A year ago, I embraced Web2, sidelining my websites, and software, and creating a blog.

Best thing I ever did. Approaching its first anniversary on April 15, it's outstripped my expectations in terms of visitors, and growth is steady, if not spectacular (way behind Domai, but I live in hope; maybe I need a few girls...).

Where next? Possibly a self-hosted blog, which would give me more control over content but, on the other hand, the prospect of starting again from scratch, with zero readers, is daunting.

We'll see...

walter donavan said...

Years ago, I was given the keys to the book of Revelation. I learned it was a simple, but not easy, set of tasks called the Seven Stages of the Journey Back to God.

"I've got to write this down," I said. "People, especially Twelve-Step people and Course in Miracles people, could really use it."

So I did. In spite of my whines (the Biblical Moses is my favourite whiner), I, who knew nothing about writing or publishing, eventually produced a polished, self-published, 465-page book that explained every word of Revelation, along with a **whole** lot of other stuff, such as the Aramaic language. Yes, it was *very* esoteric.

The book didn't sell. I had no money to promote it, and it didn't exactly leap off the book store shelves. But I learned so much ("we teach to learn") that I consider the twelve years it took to be the peak experience of my entire life. By the way, I worked on it every day, seven days a week, and never, ever considered it work.

Today I still read--and enjoy--my own book. And I treasure the whole experience.

Bob said...

"Begin.... the rest is Easy"

Anonymous said...

the longest journey begins with a single step, i once was told.... AMBLER....