First few Dollars I earnt...

First time when i entered through the doors of designing, I didn't even think I will earn a USD. But after I started GFXRebels.com, I had plans to keep Premium subscription, costing 5$ lifetime validity, and earn lots of USD. I kept adding contents for my premium users and was waiting that atleast one will purchase for a premium subscription. Later one day I felt that my approach in promoting subscription is ineffective. And I started to think of various methods to promote GFXRebels and important thing is doing the same in a cost effective manner.

I was ready to spend a maximum of 10$ per month in promotions, also had plans to increase the amount based on the response from my members. I was partly successful with some of my strategies: referral contest, graphic battles among members, point system and team battles. I also got 30-40 members per day visiting my site. But still the premium members section was empty. I don't want that that section to be empty chaired and hence I started to award my members with premium membership for some of their works... :D

Things went smooth as a melody and my site reached member count in 3 digits. One fine day, I felt I need to submit few contents to some other tutorials sites, so I could get 5-10 members from them. Hence I submitted 3 of my member's tutorials to pixel2life.com, shortly called as P2L. I wasn't aware that there will be a big tycoon waiting for me. After my tutorials was approved from P2L, I received a congratulations mail from them and I didn't take much care about it. Next day I was surprised to see my site, Tycoon had hit and the member count jumped from 150 to 750, yup 600 members in a day..:) My first thought seeing this huge improvement was that my DB got corrupted and I need to fix it ASAP. But later when I came to know that most of the traffic are from P2L. From this day I started to get 3-5 premium member per day for the whole week. I used paypal for my online transactions and for the first time I saw 4.5$ credited in my account tears rolled from my eyes since 0.5$ was taken as fee amount..;) (During this time only I came to know that fee will be deducted in paypal). Once my earning crossed 50$, I introduced further more strategies like increasing prize money for normal members, arranging special contest for premium members and more importantly, kept discussing with my forum moderators in keeping my site at its own high standards.

Time came for me to concentrate on my entrance exam for my PG and I need to sell my site. Digitalpoint helped in this. I kept my site in marketplace and I thought to sell GFXRebels to some good amount. David Lithman, a English men with high thoughts, through digital point enquired about GFXRebels and was eager to buy my site for 400$. GFXRebels was just 3 months old when I gave it to Lithman. Now, Lithman made many changes in the site and I feel really happy to see GFXRebels as one of the leading sites in graphic world.

Few things I learnt in my first few dollars I earned is never feel your site is unworthy. Also keep promoting your site not only with smart but also with cost effective techniques.

Designing (in) my Life...

Note: Hi, this is my first blog [உ (Pillaiyar suzhi.. ;))] and if u feel I need to improve my blogging/writing skills, let me know.

During my schoolings, I was an unusual boy whose didn't care about his future and spent his time dreaming to be a cricketer. :) But Time, which does change everything along when it changes and this same time also changed me. During my 10th Std holidays, when I went to Mettupalayam, a small beautiful town in TamilNadu, there I saw a few flash works made by my relative' friend. Those were so inspiring that they made me to look through the windows of photoshop and flash. My interest in design grew only because there was no one to play cricket with me. My first design was writing my name in different colors and making my name to zoom in and out. I made a few flash stuffs and the most remarkable was my 2002 new year wishes. And till that time too I didn't want to learn or to earn using my designing skill but something was planted in the mind.

During my teenage, often I used to develop sites... But my only problem was that I didn't have any content for my site.. :D... But I thought to start my site and earn something with that. And finally I made my first web page and applied for Google adsense. It got approved from Google and I placed my first banner in my site. But my only thought in that age was more of earning instantly and I started to click my ads and expected my earning to cross 100$ per month. But Google, a hub of real intelligent people, kicked off my site very soon. And I realized that earning through websites I need to have lot of professionalism.

One fine day when I was browsing, I came across planetrenders, a site related to graphics, and I got impressed by the world of graphics. And the seed which was planted in me sprouted out and I started to learn photoshop... Later I thought I should start my own site similar to planetrenders. After much analysis I started my first commercial site, GFXRebels.com. I developed the site and earned good respect in the designer's club. My site had very good content and earned good money through it. Then I wanted myself to enter into professional graphics and learnt a few things about it. Digitalpoint helped me a lot to get more customers for my web design works. I learned more about my customers and how to satisfy their requirement. Now one more seed has been planted and its for marketing.

Now my plans is to take my web designing to next level and I am working on it. While designing web stuffs for my clients, I learnt that I am passionate about one more thing, and its marketing. Hence one more seed is planted in my mind. Now, I am planning to pursue post graduation in Marketing. Lets see how this seed sprouts out... :)