Everyone Should Take More Risk
written by John Chow
Matt over at Take More Risk wanted me to review his blog and took advantage of the 50% coupon ReviewMe has running this month. Matt is an interesting character. A 23 year old who enjoys web design, alcohol and buffets. He makes about $5,000 a year from the Net and says he is going to be a millionaire soon.
I have visited Take More Risk long before Matt ordered the ReviewMe review. Matt has been a frequent visitor and commentator at John Chow dot Com and many of you already know him. The first time I visited Matt’s blog, my initial thought was, “Damn! How the hell did he grab such a premium domain name?”
Take More Risk has been online since August of last year and Matt has done a good job keeping it updated with at least one new post per day. The posts are mostly webmaster, blogging and online income related. I have to admit, he has some creative stuff on there. I really enjoy reading the Ten Tell-Tale Signs of a Webmaster/Designer on Acid. I will have to keep an eye on those signs the next time I talk to my web designer. Some other posts that are worth checking out on Take More Risk include:
- Little Known Ways of Registering and Selling Valuable Domain Names Rapidly
- When Viral Marketing Goes Wrong
- Web 2.0 Dies Overnight. Enter Web 3.0
- The Single Worst Piece Of Hardware That I’ve Ever Come Across
- Asking for Negative Reviews of Your Blog Might Just Be The Best Thing You’ll Ever Do.
- Know Your Rights With Adsense? You Have None.
Matt’s blog has a simple, clean three-column design. I would like to see the left column used more. Right now, most of the blog listings are on the right column. The blog has some formatting problems with Internet Explorer 6, but looks fine in IE7 and FireFox. Most people won’t care about this but Matt, being a web designer, will want to fix this issue.
Like my last few ReviewMe blog reviews, Take More Risk is not monetized at this time. I am not sure if Matt plans to monetize the blog or leave it as is. The theme he is using can be very easily modified to take on banner advertising. However, I feel the blog would need to do a branding shift before it can become a moneymaker.
Take More Risk seems to be a mishmash of ideas without a cohesive center. Too many categories overlap each other. Many of the categories have only one or two posts in them and one category produced a page not found error. The more I read the blog, the more the picture of Matt (I assume that is his picture) starts to make sense.
Like Matt, Take More Risk needs some direction and guidance, as well as refinement of its goals. On December 4, Matt made a post about creating 100 websites in 50 days and earning $1 on each of them within three months. After that post, I couldn’t find any updates on what happen to that plan until today, when Matt posted The 10 Greatest Mistakes I’ve Made Since Starting My Blog.
The lack of proper planning was highlighted in the post, Establishing A Plan for The Next Few Years.
Where the hell will I be in a year from now? Will I still be struggling to create successful websites and complaining about my lack of creativity on this journal. How will my family be? How will I be? Awww **** I’ll take a leaf out of Eckhart Tolle’s Book ‘The Power of Now’ and quit with the fearing of the future and actually focus on where I am now. Hmmmmm.
Take More Risk is a great reflection of a man trying to make his mark on the Internet. Matt is very honest in his postings, and he seems to know the limits of his abilities and tries to improve on them. I can offer Matt the following piece of advice.
You say you are going to be a millionaire soon. The “soon” part I don’t like. To me, soon is the same as someday. I recommend you put a date on when you will achieve millionaire status. Saying soon just makes it a dream. Putting a date on it makes it a goal. I challenge you to change your “I’m going to be a millionaire soon” to “I’m going to be a millionaire on [enter date]” and put that on your blog. It will be a daily reminder on how little time you have left and help drive you forward.
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(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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I’m glad you pointed out the soon part. When someone blindly believe such a goal and tells me, ” I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m gonna do it!” it makes my cringe.
I’d encourage their enthusiasm and dedication, but also advise them to set a date and plan out how they’re going to get there.
I appreciate your honesty and constructive criticism on your ReviewMe posts. It gives a lot of credibility to your reviews and makes me keep reading.
Great Job!
Agreed, it’s always nice to see a straightforward review with some real opinion and suggestions.
Damn!
That’s one heck of a review of the guy.. er.. I mean his blog!
Agree Steve !!! I love MAtt
OK,
I just went to his blog and had to leave after reading the first few lines of his AdSense post. At least you have an excuse for your bad grammar, being Canadian and all…
What a great review, and at 50% off its hard for Matt to go wrong.
Asking Matt to set a date to become a millionare is a great idea.
If anyones interested I just set up a bet regarding John Chow’s goal.
http://www.gottabet.com/event/detail/804
Nice blog, and he had some very interesting stuff to read.
Good review. I hadn’t visited his blog before, there are a few good reads there…
John - One of the best reviews that I have read on your blog till date.
great review, ive checked a few posts over there, now I have to get the related post plugin
lol
still having trouble with adsense deluxe
That’s the 3rd time I’ve seen Eckhart Tolle’s Book ‘The Power of Now’ mentioned. I better buy this book.
Good review John. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the constructive criticism.
Interesting article and just as interesting weblog, he indeed does have some very interesting articles, many of them containing great information for fellow webmasters/bloggers.
Good review, John. I liked the “Designer on Acid” article.
I have to disagree with you on one thing, John. Or more accurately, I would modify one of your recommendations. If Matt is only earning $5000 a year from the Net right now, he doesn’t have any way to reasonably predict when he’ll be a millionaire. If he sets a date and meets it, it’ll be a stroke of luck.
I think a better approach would be to set his goals in smaller increments and then use your idea of setting a date to achieve them. For example, “I’m going to earn $7500 from the Net by (fill in the date).”
Just keep working to meet the small goals and you’ll get to the million sooner than you think.
I agree with this sentiment. It’s unreasonable to have a goal of becoming a millionaire if he’s only at $5k/year. It wouldn’t be of any use of he used his current pace, put in some incremental improvement, and then arrived a goal of being a millionaire by 2050.
Great review as always!
I have to agree with Debbie regarding the goal setting part. If he makes 5000 usd per year, setting the goal for 1 000 000 usd won’t be
“S.M.A.R.T”(Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely).
You are talking about “timely” but I believe that the “attainable” is the issue here. A million dollar journey starts with a cent (or in this case 5000 usd), so the best approach would be to set up smaller short term objectives.
I have written an article on my blog about this some time ago… I don’t know if I should post the link here though… it may seem “spammy”
Regards,
WMA
Debbie and WMA, good pointers.
However, I’m foolish and am a great impulse goal setter so I feel compelled to be the one to disprove your smart and logical approach to 1 million dollars.
I’m going to earn $1,000,000 from the Net by December 23, 2009. (My 22nd birthday.)
Right now, I make $0 per month off of my website. I sold three text links for this month, but that doesn’t count as an average. Basically, I’m doing worse than Matt.
I’m going to do it and prove that $1,000,000 is attainable via focus and determination, and not by a stroke of luck.
Will announce this goal on my site tomorrow…
WMA and Debbie: You’re welcome to contact me to get updated on how I’m planning to do this. If you like, I can udpate you weekly.
Is that $1 million cumulative or $1 million per year? $1 million saved? My definition of being a millionaire is having a million dollars in assets (after you deduct your loans, mortgage and other liabilities of course) and being able to sustain that for a reasonable amount of time… say, a year.
Michael, I’m going to earn 1 million, not become a millionaire. So to answer your question, it’s cumulative.
Congratulations on your determination!
I will visit your site often to see how well you are doing
Good luck!
I think is Time For John Chow to Review
a Female blog …
http://www.missysblog.net
I’m sure he’d be all for it, but he isn’t going to do it for free (nice try). Send John the $125 and he’ll review your blog, I’m sure.
Im sure to
hehe
Or just send some money to some of the comment leavers on the site… I’m sure at least one person would be willing to review your site for $125
Good review, money well spent for Mr. Matt.
I am a regular reader of Matt’s blog and I highly enjoy his well written articles and incredible honesty about his various ventures. One tidbit which caught my attention was that he recently sold emohairstyles.info for $1000 on Digital Point. The site took him 2 hours to make, but within a few weeks was making $12 a day on Adsense from organic traffic! Way to go!
Neat-o. If he focused his energies on that site like how John worked on this blog, he could very well be making much more than $12/day.
John, very balanced and thoughtful. Also it seems very objective. Lots of linkbacks and an honest review. Can’t expect more from reviewme.com. I am thinking of having a review done of my blog justtraffic.blogspot.com Should be interesting…
Blogging is like a business.If you cant take risk and experiment you wont survive for long.I had a heated discussion with one of the blogger friend i know.Thats what i had been telling him…Invest for future unless u know how to roll money….it wont work.
Great Points Thx JC
Great review John. I really like the fact that you don’t sugar coat it and say it like it is.
Keep it up !
This is a good review. I think it’s great that you’re giving life advice. It’s funny, I know this lawyer and this acupuncturist who sounds just as excited about life as you do. That’s really great because to me it looks like you have control of your life and that deserves respect.
I’m just curious - and by no means am I passing judgement or anything. But if one was to go ahead and spend money on advertising, should one be in a position to make sure that visitors want to come back?
I liked Matt’s site that John reviewed, it shows ambition, but if you don’t have focus or a particular purpose, should you be spending the money on advertising at such a phase in a blog’s life?
I would think maybe wait until tweaking your blog to have a focus.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact what Matt did could be quite positive. Maybe he wanted the Review since John is riding a pretty nice wave of popularity at the moment.
Second, Matt could document how his blog goes from his current state, to a blog that has direction. In fact, that could be the theme of his blog.
Wouldn’t that be a good idea? Throw up a random blog, pay for ads, and have people come back to your site to read on what you did to use the exposure for gaining MORE exposure.
I got dibs on that guys!
You guys here, on this forum are wonderful by the way - I love posting my own thoughts, with witty comments (well, what I think is witty…)
Kunal, author of http://Www.Stockshaker.com (The Red Hot Stockmarket: Bull-ying the markets one day at a time!)
“their site is so accessible that it can be seen by Jesus.”
If that isn’t the quote of the year, I don’t know what is.
I enjoyed the posts you pulled out John. Fun reads
[...] share just a few of the wise words posted over on the review page. You should read it if you haven’t already, it’s quite inspiring! Second, Matt could [...]
I took more risk (went to the site) good site