What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started out?
 

Here is my thought provoking question of the day:

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started out?

1. Promote what you are truly into, and you will make a killing.
2. Big dogs hire newbies so they can pay them much less.

I wish I knew when I started that type in domains were worth a fortune and that AOL wasn't always going to use DMOZ results. :mad:

what not to do

Always a good one :glugglug

what i know about search engines now

I wish I had bought some type-in domains back in the 90's.

don't trust people on the internet so easy
don't do business with Mr Cash

idont know anything about mr cash but definitely do not trust everyone you meet

I wish I had known R-n Levi, like Mike AI did!!!

R-n Levi Makes a Cajun Boy RICH!!!

Always good to have passion about the topics your promoting....great one Tofu-Adult.com:thumbsup

If I had the Balls to do what I am doing now back in 97 I would have went into business for myself.

Instead I have spent my career time making everyone else rich...

That it is very easy to start promoting values I do not like - and that I feel like shit after doing that for a while.

When I started in 1996, I assumed all people had the same amount of honesty as me -

What a stupid conception.

How to realise that the fucking dip stick trying to sell you a scam is nothing more than a "fucking dip stick" and you steer clear of them.

That includes potential staff that sell you a "I'm the greatest line"

RACEMAN :thumbsup

everything!
But really i wish i knew all the scammers who fucked me over!

1) work the boards as I am now
2) understand traffic management
3) know the top best return for my dollar on banner placement
4) who to trust and not too
5) webmaster lists are gold and at the beginning I should have spent more time collecting them
6) the better parties to hang out at
7) attend more seminars and ask more questions
8) that there really is a gay and str8 mafia and who is in it
9) to beat acacia to the patent office to avoid this shit
10) know who my friends are now

Here's some things that really hampered me at first I think...


1. Fifty percent of this industry can't be trusted to a certain degree. There's a lot of untalented individuals who have chosen to conduct shady business online instead of going back on welfare and working low-end manual labor jobs. They will do anything to avoid their old life. Know who you are dealing with, always.

2. Some big guys are actually clueless in terms of today's market. So be careful who you listen to no matter who they are. Use common sense based on what you do know today to discern if it's still valid.

3. There are business models in some circles that have evolved to essencially become a glass ceiling for newbies and struggling webmasters if you get caught up into them.

4. Many people at the top got there by running more sites than they talk about on the boards. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.

5. There's always someone on the boards acting like an expert of an area they actually know absolutely nothing about.

6. If a sponsor is screwing with their own customers in any way, then there's a good chance they are screwing with their affiliates too.

7. Run sites as if they were your non-profit hobby.

8. Resource site tutorial articles are always massively incomplete (there are no exceptions to this), and are many times written by industry rejects.

9. Never ever lose touch with the surfer side of yourself. You will either fail, or cut yourself short at the least.

10. The ratios claimed by people looking for an affiliate referral are almost always bogus.

I wish I knew short ICQ UIN's would be so valuable in a few years.

1) That you don't have to have or use content to get traffic.
2) That life would be much more pleasant and I would make a lot more money once everything was automated.

Almost everyone, including supposed reputable registered and established companies in all facets of the industry are scammers.

Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina :helpme :1orglaugh

Great thread! :thumbsup

In 97 Content was king
Now Traffic is king

That beautiful women are horrendously expensive and their love is often fake.

:(

no

I should have stopped reading everything in sight to the point of paralysis and just jumped in and started fanatically working on one thing, ANYTHING, until it started self funding other projects.

Interesting observations :glugglug

did she take you for 50%?

I'm too shrewd for that bullshit. I made my moves when I saw the first letter of the writing on the wall. Let's just say I had a lot of losses that year.

:1orglaugh

That Ibill would be gone

quit stirring up shit.. I bet you already in another thread 1,000 Cash money put your money where your mouth is little man.

haha awesome :thumbsup

hmmmmm....I dunno about that, I think the opposite. In '97, it was harder to get traffic than it is today, and in '97 you could slap up some shitty content and it would still make awesome sales

Today, you NEED good content. You can't go building sites that uses content that is 2 years old 'cause you wont make shit-all money. Surfers have seen everything out there and they have a voracious appetite for the next new new girl. And if you have good content, you'll get the traffic, affiliates will send you traffic, TGPs will post your galleries, etc...

So I think content is king, having traffic is always good too, but those who have amazing exclusive content shouldn't have a hard time getting the traffic they need.

Who are you talking about?

1. that yahoo listings weren't always gonna be free
2. that tgp's weren't always gonna be making 100 signups a day and I should have milked that for all it was worth

that bang and bus were two words that would go well together.

bah.. most people here wish they could apply what they know now 6 or 7 years ago... I can't believe I was FTP'ing porn from server to server for an IRC warez crew in '97 without twigging onto the possibilities. I didn't even start for a couple of years afterwards. Still I was making good money in mainstream at the time I guess.

1) That paying for a site is quite a bit like paying for sex. It saves about 3 hours of effort.

2) If they knew what they were doing they would be doing it, not telling you about it.

3) Finds something that works and repeat, repeat and repeat.

That one is coming back around. Ask Lensman, he sees the future.

:)

Are they?? I have a short one.. what are they going for?

ten on the money

[QUOTE]Originally posted by slapass
[
2) If they knew what they were doing they would be doing it, not telling you about it.


bingo