It's Competition Time
but I am not sure what format of competition would be most interesting. I'm loathe to do another "earn as much as you can in 1 month" compo as the last one did not get many entries…
If anyone has any suggestions, please post a comment!
Comment by Matt — August 21, 2006 @ 5:24 pm
I'm totally up for this!
How about something along the lines of…
http://doubleyourwaytoamillion.blogspot.com/
but strictly online?
Or how about we all start with being allowed to invest £100 of our own money in whatever means we want online, and the person with the most left after 2 months wins or something?
Or how about everyone must make a blog from scratch and has £50 marketting capital. The person with the most uniques on the finish day wins.
Or something?!
Comment by Paul — August 21, 2006 @ 6:07 pm
Or what about see who can gain the most media attention from an idea?
Comment by Stu — August 21, 2006 @ 6:24 pm
I like the idea of something like "Who can send you the most unique referrers in a month"
You actually get something out of it then
Comment by Oli Allen — August 21, 2006 @ 7:10 pm
The idea of getting the most hits is interesting, as it teaches something that anyone doing business online (so most readers of this blog) can find useful.
Maybe something along the lines of that competition that was held on DDN a few years ago, in which you had to create a site to a restrictive specification, and try to get the most hits. (In the case of the DDN competition, the site had to be hosted on Geocities)
This could be changed to "no paid advertising" or "must be hosted on Blogspot"
I like Paul's idea too, what about a "viral advertising" contest? No formal advertising would be allowed, bonus points for ending up in a national newspaper
Comment by burt — August 21, 2006 @ 11:00 pm
Good ideas chaps. Cheers.
Here's another: everyone starts with the same base material (eg a bunch of articles). They then can do whatever they like with them in order to rasise cash within a set time limit…
I'm quite liking Matt's idea about doubling your cash…perhaps if everyone started with $5, then did *something* to double theis to $10. Any profit over goes into a savings account. And so on and forth…
Would be interesting to see the different ways to do this, and showe that it can take very little time to get to hundreds (or 1000s of dollars) very quickly…
I'll have a think about it over the next day or two and come up with some sort of compo.
Comment by Matt — August 22, 2006 @ 12:27 am
Great stuff. This is strating to sound exciting.
Having seen some of these comments, I like the idea of getting the most "uniques" on a specific day on the future (all measured by the same software, or driving the most referals. I do really like the doubling idea as well, it gives something to aim for and helps you develop/demonstrate different skills for steps 1 to 2, compared to steps 18 to 19 for example.
I'll keep checking to see what you decide on in the end.
Matt
Comment by Dave — August 22, 2006 @ 5:22 am
Count me in.
Comment by Matt — August 22, 2006 @ 8:02 am
owwwwww
Sorry to clog up the comments here, but I thought of an interesting twist on the doubling thing.
Each entrant could pick their own starting point (how much they want to invest), but the results are picked on how many times you can double your investment. That way, although it is easier to get something started on £500, it is harder to double it, whereas you have to be pretty creative to start a site on £5, but it is much easier to double your £5 investment.
Just a thought! I'll shut up now.
Matt
Comment by Gerard — August 22, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Besides the Double Your Way To A Million project, I am already doubling from $100 to over 10k at http://www.journey10k.blogspot.com
All the ideas here are good ideas and simply represent the different realities of those who suggest them. To make those ideas work, various skills need to be utilized and learnt. Rather than trying to solve a problem with what we know, we expand what we know. And we will fail and get up and start again in necessary. I heard a millionaire entrepreneur say this week: The only mistake a millionaire makes is to make the same mistake twice.
Comment by burt — August 24, 2006 @ 11:34 am
Here is my thought on the competition;
1. Everyone starts with the same amount of cash. $10 US. They can spend this in any way they please in order to make more cash within 10 days.
2. Any cash over and above *double* the original amount, will be regarded as profit.
3. Profit is totalised as we go along.
4. Every 10 days, the previous effort is disregarded, and the entrant must now start a *new* 10 day period with double the amount of cash to spend.
Example:
Mr Pink, starts with $10 on 1st September and buys a job lot of 30 blue widgets from somewhere. He starts a lot of eBay auctions and manages to sell them all for $3 [profit after ebay fees etc] each. Once completed the 10 day period, his profit is totalised as follows:
~ 30 sales @ $3 each = $90
~ Amount of float = $10
~ Float * 2 = $20
~ $90 - $20 = $70. $70 is set aside.
~ Total Set Aside = $70.
He starts Period 2 (2nd 10 days) with $20;
1. He buys a set of resellable articles from a WSO.
2. He sells 27 copies of the articles for $7 each.
3. The 10 day period is now up, and the totals are as follows:
~ 27 sales @ $7 each = $189
~ Amount of float = $20
~ Float * 2 = $40
~ $189 - $40 = $149. $149 is set aside.
~ Total Set Aside = $70 [from the 1st 10 day period] + $149 = $219
And so on, until the end of this year. This means that there would be 12 ten day periods;
1 - 10 Sept
11 - 20 Sept
21 - 30 Sept
And the same for Oct, Nov, Dec.
The deals do not have to be concluded online - once you get towards a good amount of "float", you could purchase a car (for example), do it up and then resell.
This competition is strong as;
1. Entrants are forced to spend very little in order to make cash. This makes for some ultra lateral thinking.
2. Entrants get to save a lot of cash, ready for spending in the New Year Sales
3. As the 10 day periods go on, entrants will be able to leverage their previous skills in order to create more income.
At the end of the competition, the person with the most Total Set Aside is declared the winner and will win a prize.
That is the basis of my idea, but would welcome any ideas to make it better.
Comment by Stu — August 24, 2006 @ 11:48 am
ooh, it's gonna be really hard to make anything from $10 in ten days.
Maybe something a little less "full on", such as who can turn $10 into the most cash before Xmas?
Also, can we use existing assets in this competition. If so, the person with the PR6 website is at a distinct advantage over the person just starting out.
Just some thoughts - I like the idea though!
Comment by Tom — August 24, 2006 @ 10:21 pm
Burt, your idea sounds a bit over-complicated to me. Who is able to come up with a good new way of making money every 10 days? And if they can, surely they'll be doing it already?
I reckon Stu's right, go with something more simple - a fixed amount, and see who can convert it into the most cash by a set deadline through whatever means they choose.
Though this does leave some issues - whether you can link from existing sites to get listed (as Stu mentioned); also, ten dollars isn't very much to pay for hosting/domain costs, unless you're allowed to use existing ones?
Comment by burt — August 25, 2006 @ 12:28 am
If you beleive you Cannot Do It, then you Will Not Do It. Guaranteed.
If you believe you Can Do It, you have a good fighting chance of Success.
I'm sure that anyone can spend $10 and turn that into at least $20 over the course of 10 days. It's simple!
Why are you guys worrying about the way that another entrant promotes ? Why not concentrate energy on your way of working rather than someone elses ?
Perhaps this post will shake the cobwebs from your heads & start thinking laterally. There's loads of ways to spend $10 to turn a profit in 10 days.
Comment by Tom — August 25, 2006 @ 11:20 am
It's not an issue of motivation - just the physics of coming up with a new idea every 10 days and having the time to implement it.
But it's your competition, do what you like!
Comment by Stu — August 25, 2006 @ 11:26 am
…crawls back in box…..
Comment by burt — August 25, 2006 @ 12:18 pm
I'm unsure why you'd need to start 10 different businesses. It would be quite possible to replicate period 1 to period 2, and so on. I guess, anyway.
I'll have a further think about it.
Comment by burt — August 29, 2006 @ 2:07 pm
Well, I decided to keep it KISS
Start with $25. Make it into as much as possible by Xmas, using only online means. How about that?
Comment by HCG — August 29, 2006 @ 5:23 pm
That's rubbish - the original idea was much better and challenging - isn't that the point of a competition? If people think it's too hard then they shouldn't participate.
p.s using only online means wouldn't be as interesting
Comment by Stu — August 29, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Sounds good - count me in.
And just to make things interesting, and to find out once and for all whether trying to make money online is a gamble, my $25 is going straight into my sportodds.com account. We'll see if I can get a decent return betting on sports online, rather than trying to buy and sell stuff, or other "online" means.
Comment by Paul — August 29, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
'using only online means' - So does that count out offline advertising/promotion/publicity stunts etc to get people to a website/online service?
Comment by Stu — August 30, 2006 @ 7:09 pm
hey Burt, maybe you need to make a proper post announcing the competition?
Let's get ready to rummmmmmmmble!
Comment by Oli Allen — August 31, 2006 @ 1:37 pm
Just seen this –> http://www.15kchallenge.com/blog/ < -- over at bigwadofmoney.com - looks like an interesting one to watch.
Comment by burt — August 31, 2006 @ 5:12 pm
I might change it yet
Still thinking on it.
Comment by Stu — September 1, 2006 @ 4:17 am
"I might change it yet
Still thinking on it."
D'oh! Already started….
Comment by Stu — September 1, 2006 @ 4:26 am
"I’m sure that anyone can spend $10 and turn that into at least $20 over the course of 10 days. It’s simple!"
So by this logic, if I take $1,000, I could "simply" double it into $2,000, or take 100 lots of $10 and double them into 100 lots of $20?
Or 1,000 lots of $10 and turn them into 1,000 lots of $20?
and so on.
I'm not sure it's that simple, if it were, we'd all be rolling around on large piles of $100 bills, laughing at all the peasants.
Comment by burt — September 1, 2006 @ 8:42 am
Stu; you already ruled yourself out of winning a prize anyway, as you already started before the official start (thereby giving yourself an unfair advantage over everyone else).
Stu; some people can see opportunities and some people cannot. It rather depends if you are a pessimist or optimist in my experience. Optimists think they can do it, and much of the time will do it. Pessimist think they cannot do it, and much of the time they won't do it.
Be 100% truthful, which one are you? < - this is a question I'd like to open up to every reader - if anyone has the cojones to truthfully answer this, please make a post out of it in your own blogs. I'd like to read YOUR thoughts on YOU - it may surprise you to realise that your thoughts do not match up with what your readers think of you !
Comment by Stu — September 1, 2006 @ 7:13 pm
"Stu; you already ruled yourself out of winning a prize anyway, as you already started before the official start (thereby giving yourself an unfair advantage over everyone else)."
I thought this:
"Well, I decided to keep it KISS
Start with $25. Make it into as much as possible by Xmas, using only online means. How about that? "
meant that you had started - oh well, shit happens
Comment by Amanda — September 7, 2006 @ 8:19 pm
lol, a friend sent me this earlier today 30k challenge looks like he's trying to show someone up!
Comment by Oli Allen — September 8, 2006 @ 10:54 am
They have 3 people taking part, so they should really be aiming for $45k