Have you ever wasted your time on a project that you thought would make money?

United States
May 29, 2008 11:17am CST
How about you? Have you ever spent a long time working on a project that you were sure was going to pay out, but it never did? Did you scrap the project and move onto something more successful? Right now, I'm busy building blogs and they're doing pretty well financially. Considering that they've only been up three weeks or so. But, it wasn't easy getting here. I toiled in obscurity building websites for three years that noone visited. Well, I did have a pretty popular recipe website. But, it didn't get lots of traffic. Very polished looking though. I never made any money off of that. Turns out, that blogs and Web 2.0 are my niche. Honestly, I wish I could get a refund on all the stuff I've tried online that hasn't worked out. Fortunately, I have not spent much money on this stuff, except for website hosting fees and time. But, if time were measured by money (and it often is) then I'd be out several hundred thousand dollars. Has that ever happened to you, where you start a project you think will make money, but it doesn't? Did you stick around and try to fix the project? Did it ever become profitable? Please share your experience.
1 person likes this
7 responses
@cher913 (25781)
• Canada
29 May 08
i have made cards and gift tags and tried to sell them, i have sold some, but not that many, but no, i wont scrap doing them because this is something i enjoy doing. (that is half the battle, right?)
1 person likes this
• United States
29 May 08
Oh my! I'm so jealous! I would love to use my crafting talents for making money. Try selling on Ebay, that works for many crafters or do seasonal craft shows. You'll have much success around Christmas time. Best of luck with your business. I hope it works out for you.
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
11 Jul 08
Well, I would not say that I ever really expected a pay out, but I would sure love to be able to make a living doing my pottery. I have put a great deal of time, effort and money into improving my skills. But it is something I do for the love of it and the art expression. I don't believe you can really put a value on that.
• United States
11 Jul 08
Do you sell on Etsy, yet? I have crochet that I'm planning to list.
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
11 Jul 08
I have a few friends doing really well on Etsy. I have not tried it yet myself. My pottery making has slowed down a lot since my son was born. It is so hard to make time for making quality pieces anymore.
@carolscash (9491)
• United States
11 Jul 08
I tried to sell Home and Garden Party for over 2 years and put a lot of time and money into it and I rarely made anything off of it. I had a couple of good shows but not enough. Finally, I gave up on it although I enjoyed it a great deal. I am trying to open a tanning salon now and I hope that it works.
• Hong Kong
12 Jul 08
Well, you know I have a website and blog and such. At first, they didn't turn out to be well visited. But we keep fine-tuning until it's getting there and at least it could generate enough income to sustain itself. I don't remember a lot other stuff I tried, but I remember building other things which I lost interest after awhile and gave up. Of course those didn't really generate nice money.
@snowy22315 (208783)
• United States
11 Jul 08
About a year ago I tried to start a business selling health discounts which were similar to insurance but not actual insurance. Anyway I paid about fifty dollars to start this and did not make a dime. The only good thing about it was that I bought this service for myself and have used it. I was preturbed that I did so bad at this business,but live and learn. Never again will I pay a dime to start a business.
@akrockz (306)
• India
11 Jul 08
no i dint experience any such....
@Lee768 (74)
29 May 08
I have spent the last 9 months trying to make my website profitable. I wanted to make some cash on the internet about that time ago and started searching online. Came across a package called the ultimate wealth package (strangely not available anymore,lol) and unfortunately i was sucked in. It was cheap, around $50 and had so many ebooks and multiple income streams so I thought it sounded great. Well a week after buying this product i asked for my money back, started to search internet and felt that i had been scammed. I got the money back but had already paid out for a year with a webhost ($120). And of course once you have convinced yourself that you can earn with this type of thing i decided to keep it just 4 a year and see whether i could earn a decent amount of money. Now i really wish i hadn't bothered. Or at least started looking for free earning Opps. in the first place. It's not the money i have spent that bothers me. It's the time i spent on it. I'd hate to have a guess at how many hours i have wasted trying to boost it's popularity. I tell myself now that i have found ways to earn, and i have (free ways) and that i wouldn't be earning anything if i hadn't started this thing but it's still pretty embarrassing just to be sucked in by one of these get rich schemes and then ultimately give up, which i have done. So my advice for any1 looking to earn online is to stick with the free methods as there are many good legitimate ways out there. And although i wouldn't say this Ultimate Wealth Package was a scam (see still dumb), I would love to hear the percentage of people who have turned it into a worth while income. I'm guessing it's less than 1%. Any1 out there who bought this particular product and did well with it?