In my previous post in this series, I talked about my plan for domination of the plugin development market. As with anyone starting something new, I hoped to perform well in my new endeavor. Little did I know that I would have so much interest right from the beginning.

Plugin-Developer.com targets a niche market, which makes it perfect for a targeted advertising campaign through Google Adwords. When I launched the site, I poured a bunch of time into planning and targeting keywords through Adwords, and created a number of different ad variations. To start with, I’m only targeting those people looking for WordPress plugin developers.

Much to my surprise, my initial ads have been more than effective for my needs. My business has attracted a lot of interest from a number of different people. My CTR has been steadily rising as well as the number of clicks that I get from people viewing Google search results.

On an average day I receive 3-4 quote requests. Of course, not all of these turn into paying projects, but the conversion rate so far is OK. Besides, I wouldn’t have time for all of the projects that have been proposed.

Other marketing that I did involved writing an insightful blog post on plugin development and posting it to digg.com and StumbleUpon. While I don’t think I got any direct leads through the article, it got me a fair amount of exposure.

For paying projects, I’ve had a fair bit of success so far. I had two active projects that I finished the first phase of development on yesterday. When those get approved, I’ll have some fresh capital rolling in. I also have a third project lined up to start either next week or the week after and am negotiating with a number of different people to get some more clients lined up.

Some next steps that I’m looking at taking include the following:

1. Create a dedicated landing page for my advertising
2. Do some testing with my Adwords advertising to try to improve CTR
3. Write more blog articles to increase exposure
4. Setup my LLC

I obviously have a lot ahead of myself, but I’m really excited about the prospects here. Almost all profits will be either invested back in to the business initially or go towards my future apartment in Seattle.

Now, onto whether I accomplished my goal or not:

Expenses

• Advertising — $23.75
• Old Expenses — $270.00

Total: $293.75

That’s not bad for expenses for a startup.

Incomes

• Deposits received — $190
• Pending payment — $660

If you include the pending payment, I’ll have made a profit. If you don’t, I’m about $100 short. No matter the formal conclusion of the 40 day experiment, launching a business has been successful and profitable for me, and I can see the development of plugins taking me very far.

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.

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.

In a recent post, I reflected on my accomplishments and important personal events in 2007. Now that 2008 is almost a third of the way done, I think it’s high time to lay out my plans and goals for the year. For your convenience I’ve separated the goals into three loose groupings.

Personal

2008 is going to be a very important year in my process of personal development. First, I’m going to be graduating from college with a degree in computer science and taking the next steps into adulthood. Also, I’ll be moving to Seattle with my fiancee sometime after graduation.

I will be attempting to blog here more, focusing on programming tutorials and similar articles. I’ve been furthering my programming skills a lot over the past year, and I’m excited to share the techniques I’ve learned with others.

Finally, I’ll be helping to plan my wedding to the most amazing girl on the planet. We’ll be together permanently this summer and then we get down to the dirty work of finding the things we need to get the ball rolling. I’m excited for this more than anything.

Professional

My professional life is at an intersection right now. I’m still trying to decide if I want to seek a traditional job for post-graduation life or if I prefer the free wheeling life of running my own business. I have a number of different options when it comes to making money after obtaining my degree:

Traditional Job

Computer science majors are in demand, and my skills are quite mature in a variety of technologies. I’m a fast learner and I enjoy a challenge. A traditional job would not be difficult to obtain, in my mind. The concerns come from what I would be giving up: flexible hours, being my own boss, and always working on the things that I want to work on. Is the security worth those tradeoffs?

Contractor

This is what I did all last year, and it was a blast. I enjoyed working from home and making my own hours. Because I didn’t have to commute, I was able to put in more hours on actual work and still have time for the fun stuff in life. This is one option that I have experience with and would love to do it again.

Personal Trainer

I’m a pseudo personal trainer as it stands. I make sure my floor exercises and I’ve gotten a lot of people started on exercise programs this year. I know I could make a living personal training, and its something that i would enjoy doing. The only problem is that they don’t make that much money unless they can establish a loyal and somewhat affluent clientèle.

Independent Software Vendor

This is the option I’m really leaning towards. I want to create software to fulfill a need that I know exists, primarily in the sports and fitness world. I have so many ideas, but I’m not sure how to market the products that I create.

So, you can see I’m being pulled in a number of different directions. I have no idea, right now, what my plan is, but I’m sure it’ll work out in the end.

Fitness

My fitness level is an integral part of my life. I’m an active exercise enthusiast and I find that I work best when I have particular fitness goals to strive for. As such, by the end of 2008 I plan to have achieved each of the following at some point in the year:

• 5% body fat while weighing more than 200 pounds
• Dead lift 585 pounds
• Barbell bench press 325 pounds
• Become a certified personal trainer

I have a pretty thorough plan for the next 6 weeks to attempt to decrease my bodyfat to a point where I may be able to start fitness modeling. You can download the Workout and Nutrition Plan I’ve put together.