As a part of the 10 year anniversary celebrations I discuss my thoughts on development. I hope you enjoy this second video in the series.

I have developed a lot of different websites over the years using a large variety of software platforms. From this experience the current suite of content management systems (eg. wordpress, Joomla etc.) lack a number of key components that domain investors require if they are to scale their development effectively.

In the video I discuss a number of the projects that I'm working on that endeavour to solve many of these problems.

Our house has been in the midst of a lot of change over the past week. Tim and his girlfriend flew down from up north for a flying visit and our daughter Sarah is in the process of moving into her own place.

Life’s been a little bit chaotic with people coming and going. Come Tuesday next week and there will just be Roselyn and I with eighteen-year-old daughter Elise rattling around the house built for a lot more than just us.

When life throws you a whole lot of changes you can either resist what is happening or go with the flow.  I’m an eternally optimist so I like to look on the empty bedrooms as an opportunity.

I recently had a person tell me that I’m too optimistic and that I need a dose of reality. I responded by saying that I like to make my own reality so it may as well be a positive one. I must admit that I get tired of people that always seem to point out that donuts have holes…..for heaven’s sake you’ve got a donut. Enjoy it!

I’m now in the process of turning one of the spare bedrooms into a video/sound studio with a green screen and all. I love messing around with being creative with that type of stuff and my “donut” is looking better every day.

I’ve now bought a high-end microphone, mixing console, and some sound software so that I can record an audio version of my book, Battleframe. I’ve always wanted to do this and now I have the space to do it in…..so get ready for some audio and even video action!

When life brings changes your way remember that not all of them are bad. It seems to me that when your children get older and leave the nest they inevitably bring back someone else with them. You can either view this as a threat to the way things were or an opportunity to get to know someone your kids really love.

Sarah had her birthday this past week and we had all the boy and girlfriends around for a great celebration. It was fantastic seeing them laughing and interacting with one another….it’s one of the many blessings of being a parent.

So decide what you're going to do in your life, look at the donut or grumble that it's got a hole.

Have a great weekend!

Michael

This is the first in a series of videos that are a part of the 10 year anniversary of blogging. The videos released over the next couple of weeks will cover topics including:

• The Problems With Development
• Domain sales
• Traffic domains

In this video I discuss a number of pertinient domain management topics, including; business models, tracking against goals and the problems of scaling.

I hope you enjoy this series as I share my thoughts about some of the challenges with being a domain investor and more importantly what are solutions that can be adopted.

As a part of the 10^th Anniversary celebrations I’m talking with Colin Campbell from .CLUB. Colin is the CEO and one of the founders of .CLUB, and in the video he discusses what's been happening with .CLUB over the past year.

Colin then shares his thoughts on the controversial pricing increases that some registries have implemented. More importantly for .CLUB domain investors, he talks about why .CLUB is contractually and commercially bound not to follow suit.

This is quickly followed-up by the new startup initiative where .CLUB has purchased a building in Fort Lauderdale Florida for the startup community. They are in the process up fitting the building out and within the next 12 months plan on supporting over 30 startups both with investment and facilities.

I hope you enjoy the easy banter back and forth as Colin and I discuss a wide range of domain investment topics.

Many readers are aware that I recently launched a new business and that I was having trouble enticing customers to the service. It just so happens the business is a new bird bath outside my study window and the customers are birds (the flying ones).

Although there’s been a lot of funny anecdotes there has also been a serious thread of discussion about how to attract customers to a new business. Every new business has a vision of their ideal customer and a “full proof” plan on how to attract them. The problem is that years of experience has proved plans look great on paper and reality is something else entirely.

For example, I had a great vision of birds flocking to my wonderful bird bath and I would enjoy them singing away outside as they happily splashed away. My reality was a bird bath that was entirely ignored.

The one thing that a start-up has to their advantage is their ability to quickly change direction. If the plan isn’t working, then change the plan. Don’t burn more cash…..move!

In my case, I tried to entice the birds with bread. They loved the bread on the ground and completely ignored the bird bath. I then moved the bird bath. That still didn’t work so I moved it again. I constantly tweaked my “business” with the end goal of attracting my customers (ie. birds).

If a start-up is to succeed, then it must get customer feedback as fast as possible. There is no point in building the ultimate product that no one wants. For those people who tell you they love what you’re doing then ask them the same question with a charge attached.

I’ve seen so many businesses give their products/services away in the name of “market share” only to find that once they try to charge no one wants what they’ve built. A sale isn’t a sale unless ultimately there is a financial transaction attached. Anyone can give a service away…..it’s much harder to sell it.

So where am I at? As can be seen by the pictures I now have multiple different species of birds enjoying the bread and the bird bath. This is important as the different species indicate that I’ve now tapped into not just a single market but multiple different market segments.

A start-up needs to quickly classify what customer segments are buying their products/services. This means really paying attention to what customers are buying versus the time wasters and then focusing your efforts to exploit the revenue opportunities.

I should say that my feathered customers are also paying customers. The other day, Roselyn and I woke up to a magpie warbling beautifully outside our bedroom window. That was payment enough for us both. For me, it was wonderful to know that I’d managed to successfully launch another little start-up business.