will76

LOL hey Dave.

Sorry to hear about the problems you are having, and your current meltdown.

I didn't lose all of my money on bad investments, but I did lose a good chunk of it. I'll explain to you how this happens, as it may help you since it sounds like you have gone through a similar situation.

When people like us excel in our field (traffic and advertising for me, AVS sites for you) we get a little bit of a complex thinking we are brillant and we know it all. We think we can venture into other fields we know nothing about and be successful in them as well.

I would like to point out it is the right idea though, to diversify. I started a debris clean up and demolition company after Katrina. Lost about 100K and 6 months of my time. I didn't have the right contracts (right connections) and got in a little over my head with it. But I thought I would make millions because I had done well with other stuff in the past and I like to think I am a pretty intelligent guy and thought it all through. but it didn't work out.

I also partnered with a contractor back in 04 and started building houses, did great with it till the market crashed in 06. I had been keeping it small, building 2-3 houses at a time. Things were going good, so the aggressive, confident guy I am decided to ramp it up to 10 - 15 houses at a time right before the market crashes. I got stuck with a lot of houses and land that I lost my ass on getting rid of.

You on the other hand, I don't know what you have done offline, but I can see your failures online pretty well. You had the right idea to diversify online (all thought you waited very late to do it). But like me, you got into things you knew nothing about and thought you would be able to do it all yourself and do very well with it. I talked to you about your cams site and offered to help you (for a small fee of course) but you didn't need help, you thought you could do it and figure it out. I see similar things happened with your tube site, I bet you came up with that all on your own and consulted no one.

What I have learned (and hopefully you have as well) is that when you do something other than what you are really good at, you need help. You need to find other people who are welling to help advise you BEFORE you jump into a new expensive project. Just because we have been very successful in the past with one thing doesn't mean we will be successful with everything else we do in the future.

I still do well with clickcash. Not nearly as good as i did 5 years ago, but I've cut costs and work harder and I can't complain... the margins are still pretty good. I never blew money on million dollar homes, expensive wives, and lots of fancy sports cars. So I still have assets and money, even though I took a hit with some of my other ventures.

To your question, why did I not start my own cam site. Much the same reason why you should not have started your own cam site that failed. Unlike you, I know what it takes to start and run your own cam site, the time, money, connections to talent and resources you need to do it right. Any idiot can go blow 50K on programming, use some other site's chat host and their own billing and fail. Why would I want to do that. I don't have 1/10th of the traffic needed to launch a cam site on my own. I don't have good connections to chat hosts or studios. But mainly I don't have the time and resources. I would have to find someone to do the programming and shell out a lot more than you spent just to get it done right. None of my current programmers can do this type of work. It would be a huge risk and a lot of time for me to hire a new programmer to build it all. I have seen lots of horror stories with that. I could be blowing a lot of money to someone that doesn't finish the work or does it not so well and the site is never even finished or if it doesn't function right. It's simply a lot of work, money and time to start a new one. A huge investment that I do not have all of the pieces (really none of them) to pull it off.

Does that mean I haven't learned a ton and could help other existing sites make their site better ? of course I can. If you would have talked to me first I would have helped save you a lot of money. Day to day I am going to stick to what I do best and keep advertising and generating sales.

Hope this helps you.

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ICQ: 86364801 Email: will [at] innovativeassets [dot] com