After talking it over with Nate (my partner on these sites) we have decided to take the plunge. In an attempt to increase traffic and profit to our websites, I’m going to take the next few months and work virtually full time on them. It’s a big step and we’re not sure how it will work out, but both agreed that it is worth the risk.

Up until this point both Nate and I were splitting the profit to the site. He as agreed to let me take 100% of the profit these next six months to spend as much time as I can both promoting and writing content for the site. The hope is that by doing so we can take the site to the next level.

We have been treading water the last few months. Spending half my time on the site was enough to keep it updated and active, but didn’t produce any growth. Nate’s willing to forgo his half share these next 6 months because if we can take it to the next level, we both hope to spend our full time doing this. Without me spending a greater portion of my time on the site, we just didn’t see that happening in the near future.

At the moment the site doesn’t produce enough income for me to do it full time, but I know I can make ends meet doing ebay on a part-time basis (hopefully only for a few months) With my current calculations, if I spend 4 full days doing ebay, I should be able to devote the rest of the time to the site.

To say the least I’m quite nervous. It’s going to be a significant decrease in income over the period, but I feel the rewards outweigh the risks. The biggest reward for me would be that I would be able to work anywhere in the world as long as I had an Internet connection. Since I travel so much between Japan and the US, this is a huge point. It also means that I could do a lot more traveling which I haven’t been able to do lately.

We also see the worse case scenario still having a positive. If I can’t increase income to make it a full time job, I will at the very least increase traffic and membership some which will add value to the site and more than likely increase the monthly cash flow.

It’s both a little scary and certainly exciting. Although this is not the main focus of the blog, how I’m progressing on the goals and how it is affecting our finances will get some airtime now and again. I hope to have good news to post when March 2006 finally arrives.