TimRees.net launched
When you first look at this site you might be a little confused as the history of posts it suggest the site has been running for months and not just launched as the title states.
I’ll be honest, most of these were pulled from my other blog – makingamillion.net just to get it this one going. I hope you don’t feel too cheated!
So now I am going to explain what this site is all about, and what my previous site was too. I hope you are sitting comfortably.
When I first started makingamillion.net, it was purely to document my progress on a rather foolish ambition to make money, through business, share trading, consulting and just about anything.
Truthfully it’s been a harder and slower process than originally planned! Since launching that site 3 years ago, much has happened. And in all the madness makingamillion.net became less about progress and more about me.
Now things have stabilised a lot. I have a new and growing company, new offices near my home and already employ in the region of 10 people in our Ukraine development offices.
In light of this I thought it wise to launch a site where I could go in to detail about my general business dealings and also write about some of the more trivial matters that enter my somewhat disturbed mind!
My old site will continue to run as it was first intended – concentrating on reporting any financial progress and the steps that led to it, although I am not actually that concerned about the money any more. I just want to build something I can step back and feel proud of… corny but true.
My main focus is more on growing my companies reputation and having fun with it, than lining my pockets with it’s profits.
This doesn’t mean I will be taking stupid risks, I have every intention to protect any wealth it generates, and to provide security in the jobs it creates. I have already made many mistakes I can learn from, and I’ve seen others make much bigger ones which I shall do my best to avoid.
At the same time I definitely won’t take myself, or even the company too seriously. I don’t want to work in that sort of environment, and I sure as hell don’t want to inflict any kind of demoralising mentality on anyone I employ.
That’s it – I hope you now know what TimRees.net, makingamillion.net, and I am about.
Do check back, sign up for email updates in the top corner, or use the RSS feed to get instant updates.
I shall do my best to keep my posts short, informative and worth reading. This one was a little longer than intended but purely so that I could set the mood.
I hope that in a day or two I will have the little matter of a birth to report. Right now I am going to eat some cake.
Mixed day
I find myself at 1.30am working…… again…… and probably not being that efficient. So probably a good time to do something which is not too taxing like writing this post!
A very busy few days – I am still reviewing budgets, but also more exciting things like looking for offices not too far from where I live. This is the next logical next step for building a small UK team responsible for growing Real Interactive. The hunt for a Business Development Manager is now well and truly on.
I’ve also just been putting together notes on the site which will soon effectively replace this one. TimRees.net – no point visiting it until May 2009 as there is nothing there yet. Nothing at all.
So amongst all this excitement on top of the usual development progress, I thought it sensible to have a quick look at what sales were looking like this month. Surprisingly at first glance they don’t look to good: something like 10% down on last month.
I don’t tend to get too bogged down with the exact figures until the end of the month. There is still too much variance from day to day to start thinking about them at this level. Naturally I would still prefer to be up 10% than down!
No point in me guessing exactly what’s going on. What is interesting is that we are close to having more paying members than at any other time before. Which I hope will mean the rest of the month will pick up to reflect this.
We have cut marketing which we knew was ineffective, and now building it up in areas we know are effective. It will take a few weeks yet for this to really show in the sales figures.
And as I let out a rather long yawn I think it is time for me to retire for the night. It’s going to be a rather similar day tomorrow.
Making good progress
Had a bit of a restless night last night. Lots on my mind at the moment, mainly business and thankfully nothing to stress about. I also started thinking about what it’s going to be like having a baby here again, only 6 weeks to go now, and it’s first time I’ve really thought that much about it. Will probably start counting down now.
Anyway, just wanted to post a nice graph so can see the continued progress with revenues generated on our sites. I think we’ll have a month or two flat again while the effect of marketing starts to come through, then we’ll begin to see more growth. My predictions for second half of the year are we will see marketing come good at the same time as launching some affiliate offers. The combined effect should be some insane growth!
No new car for me
There are times in everyone’s life that you have to make some tough decisions and inevitably make sacrifices. Giving up your last rolo to a loved one (though as I have just discovered on wikipedia there is an even number of rolos in a packet so this should not be a problem), or maybe something even worse than that!
Over the past few days I have been faced with a pretty tough choice: To go out and buy myself a a big, fast, sexy and really very silly car…. or not!
I have been doing some financial planning and sadly it looks like it might be in my interest to put this dream car on hold for a few more months.
This is not because the I’m struggling. I could easily keep overheads low and cream off a very healthy profit each month. But knowing the true potential of the business, and supposedly doing my best to build some kind of reputable long term company I know this approach isn’t sensible. The money that could be going on a supercar shall instead be put to better use in employing someone to help grow the company. Clearly a much wiser investment.
I am actually putting the company in a position where the balance sheet will show a loss over the next few months, normally a somewhat risky decision. As 100% shareholder I don’t have to justify this to anyone. Though if I did, it would still be easy.
The sites my company runs bring in a huge percentage of revenues from recurring and re-initiated payments every month. These are existing customers that we have already swallowed the acquisition costs on. These members are automatically paying a subscription every month, or re-subscribing. At any point I can massively reduce overheads, stop marketing, and still see the same income for a few months, before it slowly starts to tail off, and easily pay back any small losses. I have the added benefit that we do not have a long list of suppliers, and those that we do are not directly linked to our member acquisitions, so any future money we make from existing members need not leave the company.
My plan is naturally to grow revenues so future profits swallow these losses without the need for any cutbacks. My projections look good for this to happen, and I have quite a good track record when it comes to realistic projections!
That’s it. No car for me for a few more months then 
. The trade off is a bigger and more stable company. A sacrifice worth taking.
Maybe we’ll have an Indian summer and I can have my mid-life crisis a little later in the year.
Running
I went for a run yesterday! Doesn’t sound like much, but being extremely unfit I feel it was a small achievement. I didn’t go far but my legs are feeling it today. I just need to take the next step now and start going to the gym again, get some muscle back on to my stick limbs and get rid of my pot belly!
I’ve always gone through periods of being healthy, and it is true that I have always felt much better when I am exercising regularly. I am a firm believe that a healthy body = healthy mind. Just not as firm a follower of it! The past 2 – 3 years I’ve always used the fact I’ve been too busy with work to go, and though partly true, it is just an excuse. A crap one! Well no more Mr Rees.
So, as I am in such a positive state of mind today I should really get on and do something productive with it.
I’ve a important things to do on top of the general day-to-day reviewing I do:
Ta ta for now people.
Progress Report
Just looked very quickly at March figures. It appears that overall revenue growth is about 25% on February. Which of course is good, and somewhere around the levels I want.
BUT sadly I am going to have to dig a little deeper – we’ve spent more on advertising this month, driven higher traffic and really should have seen bigger jump.
Either some new traffic sources are not converting as well as they should be, or we might have some problem which is affecting the overall conversions.
I am not concerned yet as I have a good idea of what is going on and importantly what can be done to improve the situation.
Today our new development office opens! We’ll now quickly complete final touches to BeSinful.com, launch other sites in to our network and start to roll out a few other apps which should contribute very nicely to our little network of community based sites.
The biggest factor though is the planned introduction of an affiliate program, which is already looking very nice. When this is ready I will be making a huge deal about it, quite frankly we’ll be a lot better than most of the crap out there!
And trust me, having tested and made a lot of money on many of the “best” dating affiliate programs, I can tell you with some confidence that they are mostly crap!
Car – just an extension to your penis?
Just got sent a link to this video. And I couldn’t agree more with this dude. A car is definitely not just a penis extension!
A little bored
I am sat in my office a little bored, so decided to kill a few minutes to write a little update here before going and making myself a coffee.
Business
Got some new accountants that have helped me sort out structure and set up for my company going forward. Which has made things a lot simpler for me. I really struggled for a long time to find accountants who understood online business, international trading and advice me properly.
Revenue wise things are good, pretty certain that it’ll be another record month, again!
Marketing is gaining some traction, numbers picking up and CPA’s dropping. Just need to do some monitoring to make sure the traffic we are buying is converting in to the right number of sales.
Development continues to go well. Have just taken on a further 2 developers and will be adding a designer to the team to steam roll forward with and begin some new projects. These will involve taking an existing platform which has been designed to be adaptable, and developing new sites and applications for it. We also have a Video Chat API module planned which will need integrating in to our sites, and might explore providing this as a solution for websites to plug in.
I’ll soon start looking for a business development/brand manager. Ideally a young, ambitious and very adaptable individual who can take over and assist me with much of the day-to-day planning and running of the company. Particularly on the marketing and affiliate management side. As this is a very unique business and position I doubt there is anyone who ticks all the boxes, it will simply have to be someone with the potential to grow in to the role and make it theirs. Oh, clearly they will have to be very open minded too!
Personal stuff
About to start on a serious hunt for my car. Have a good idea of what it will be though as there is not many of the exact model I want about I might end up making an impulse buy!
I am also bored of this site – will probably get someone to update it, to make it, and me, look sexier. Quite a task I know.
Mixed blessings
Firstly, looks like another good month. Not done detailed numbers but cash flow looks to be just a little behind what we were doing last month. But there are more new members and expect this to continue increase too. So everything is running to plan.
I noticed the pound has taken another bit of a pounding today. I won’t speculate on the exact reasons for the drop, but obviously the current longer term downward trend has come about because of the crappy economy.
Thought I’d write a quick note on how I’ve been affected by all this.
Good:
1. Like most of the companies who operate in a similar “internet dating” space as I do, business has actually increased, and continues to do so.
2. I see even more opportunities for the future as unstable companies either go to the ground, or are forced to merge with others opening space in the market
3. US Dollar income becoming more valuable relative to UK income
Not so good:
1. A lot of my direct costs are in US dollars. Overheads that were once cheap are not anything like as cost effective as they were, and will only get even more expensive.
2. Raising finance. Any business can do with cash to get it going (spent wisely). Banks turned me down for no other reason than they were tightening their belts. Even with cash flow and evidence of growth.
The balance for me though is definitely with this being favourable for me. Not actually being able to raise finance from banks led me to investors, who for obvious reasons currently want more equity than normal. After exploring this route for a while I actually came to the conclusion that I don’t want to give anything away. I want 100% of my business, even if this means having less cash now and slower growth. Having even met a few investors who were literally taking the piss with what they wanted in return, I am more determined than ever to keep this to myself!
Things are not as simple as they would have been if I was in the same position 12 months ago. But I am still right now in looking to expand my development team, increase my marketing spend, and hopefully soon recruit talent that can take over a lot of what I do day-to-day. It is for that reason that I will spend the next couple of days with accountants and bookkeepers trying to work out precisely how and when I can make this happen.
I am in an industry in which just staying afloat right now is not good enough. I need to be growing while the rest of the world continues to crumble to the ground!
On that note I shall get back on to the accounts, before these are my famous last words!
Year flying by
One sixth of the year has gone by in the blink of an eye! This is to me rather worrying as I hate time slipping away! And considering I want to achieve so much this year I should probably be concerned!
To achieve my financial targets for the year I need revenues to be growing at a rate of 34% every month. Only a couple of days of February to go and though I’ve not looked at the exact numbers I don’t think it can’t that far off. It has already been a record month across…. EVERYTHING! Had it been a slightly longer month then the numbers would surely have been hit.
I am actually very pleased that I am more or less on track as much of the revenue I am projecting for later in the year comes from sites that do not yet exist.
