It is my distinct pleasure that I introduce the formal launch of a site that I’ve been working on for a while now. The site is Plugin-Developer.com, and it is the project that that I mentioned in my earlier post From Nothing to Profit in 40 Days.

What is Plugin-Developer.com?

I guess the question I get asked most frequently is “What is Plugin-Developer.com”? In essence, Plugin-Developer.com aims to serve a very unique niche in the realm of web development. There are a variety of software packages out there that make use of plugins to extend their core functionality. Many of these systems are open-source and I have programmed plugins for a good deal of them. As such, I feel I can leverage my experience and expertise to provide quality service.

Working to Success

As noted before, my success criteria is to bring this venture from nothing to profitable in 40 days. As stated before, I started on April 18th and have until May 28th to become profitable through the business. I also mentioned some of the expenses I had started to accumulate. Following is an updated list:

• Domain Registration — $29.85
• Logo Contest Fee — $39.00
• Logo Contest Prize — $150.00
• Coffee for Work Purposes — $50.00

That’s about $270.00 worth of stuff that I now need to earn back to get in the black. The question is, how am I going to do that? That’s where the plan comes in.

The Plan

I have a plan to drive targeted traffic to my website and, hopefully, get work. The first part of the plan involves advertising. I’m going to be using Adwords to attempt to find an audience that could make good use of the services I’m offering. The goal, obviously, is to get them to the quote page, where they can request for me to develop something.

The second part of the plan is to post frequently on web development forums and on the plugin forum at WordPress.org. If I can show my expertise, perhaps people will visit my site through my forum signature. Finally, I’ll be relying, somewhat, on word of mouth. I need to get people talking about my services, but I’m not entirely sure how at this point. That remains something to be determined.

I’m a big fan of online communities. I rely on them for a lot of advice and I like to give back as much as I receive. When Earner’s Forum started a while ago, I was one of the first members, but school was killing me and I had to scale back my investment in the community. Now, I see that Earner’s Forum and Webmaster Talk are merging. Not only that, but they have a huge contest going on right now that runs through May 13th. While it is a little late to get started, the prizes are definitely worth aiming for.

I’ve been posting like crazy on the forums for the past day, and I’m already up to 50 posts today. Of course, there are people on the forum with over 5000 posts as of today, and posts are worth 2 points each. I’m obviously not going to catch up like this. I’ll have to resort to other means, like writing articles and getting blog posts.

I highly recommend that you signup for the forum and post there. I’m sure you’ll find it enlightening, and I’ll try to help you if I find you there. If you do sign up, please do so through my referral link. I appreciate it :)

Weblog Tools Collection recently announced the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5, a chance for WordPress plugin developers to use their innovative capabilities to come up with new and useful plugins. There are always good prizes at stake, and I’m determined that I’m going to enter this time. I’d love to have a chance to win my share of some cash or hosting, like last competition’s winners did.

I already have more than a few ideas of what I might be doing, but I’m not completely sure yet. If you’d like to suggest some plugins that you think would be nice to see developed, then I’d be all for considering them. Please let me know in the comments here or by email via my contact form.

As I near the end of my college career, I think I’ve finally decided which route I’ll be taking in the coming months, and hopefully years. My strategy is three-pronged, but in this post, and subsequent ones in this series, I’d like to elaborate on one of the less conservative approaches I am taking.

Ever since I took a job last year as an internet contracter, a position that was literally “work from anywhere,” I’ve been hesitant about going back to work for someone where I have to go to an office and have someone else dictate where I have to do my work. I think work should be based on results, and sitting in a cubicle somewhere isn’t going to help me be more productive.

As such, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to manage working from home full time. I consider myself a talented web developer and code slinger, so I knew I could leverage that to build a business. The problem stems from the fact that there are countless numbers of web developers out there, many of whom would be cheaper than me. I knew I needed to find a niche to fill, and that’s when inspiration struck me.

Most of my web development work has been writing plugins for popular open-source publishing packages like WordPress and Drupal. That’s certainly a niche area, and plugin development is something that is in high demand right now as individuals attempt to grow their online presence. As such, I’ve determined that I can make an impact, at first, as just a plugin developer.

I’m determined to make sure this isn’t another one of my ideas that goes for naught. As such, I’ve made a guarantee to myself that I will go from nothing to profit with this business venture in 40 days. That gives me enough time to get my product to market and in front of an audience that demands my services, and it also gives me enough time to complete a few projects that can earn me some much needed cash.

I’ll be chronicling this journey right here on this blog. To start, I’d like to summarize my current state of affairs. I started this project on April 18, 2008 by registering three domains that I couldn’t believe weren’t already taken. In the last two weeks I’ve been developing the website for this business venture, and I’m almost ready to push it live. I just need a logo developed and I’m good to go.

So far, my expenses have been as follows:

• Domain Registration — $29.85

I fully expect these expenses to increase as I go. I need to start using some type of project management tool, but I’m not sure what it will be yet. I’m investigating my options right now. I also need to get around to registering my business as an LLC, but that will probably wait until after the 40 days are over. That makes it easier to claim a profit, at least. Finally, I’ll have to do some marketing to get my name and website out there, so to speak. I expect to spend at least $150 on that, targeting it appropriately.

In the next post, I’ll be revealing my website to the world and talking about the marketing that I’m doing, as well as posting about any progress I’m making as far as project goes.

On Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Annual Honors and Awards banquet. Other then commencement, this is the largest honorary event of the school year held by the school.

I was happy to have my achievements at this school recognized in a way that was visible to my family, friends, and the community as a whole. I was also happy to see that my hard work has paid off in a way other than good grades.

I won two awards from the CSSE department. The first was the Doc Criss Outstanding Senior Project Award. This award is

Awarded annually to the most outstanding computer science or software engineering senior project or thesis.

I was pleased to receive this with two of my classmates, Eric Brynsvold and Jon Atkinson. The other award that I ended up winning was the Addison-Wesley Outstanding Senior Award, an individual honor. This award is

Presented to the senior computer science or software engineering student who, in the opinion of the faculty, has distinguished him(her)self in academics, service, character, and attitude, and who has the promise of an outstanding career in some aspect of computer science.

The reason this award was so special to me was that I have only been a Computer Science major for two years. Prior to switching, I was a mechanical engineering major. I worked hard in my last two years at Rose-Hulman, and I’m happy to claim this award.

Other than pride and bragging rights, these awards came with special perks. I received a check with the Outstanding Senior Project award, and I received The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3 in a sweet boxed set. The following is a stock image of what I received: