Inkululeku

“Vasbyt”

inkululeku — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 22:23:24 +0000

I said I’d write about “Vasbyt”. First, you might want to watch the video about “Vasbyt“, the South African Police’s Special Task Force admission test.

“Vasbyt” is an Afrikaans word. It basically means “to hold on”, but with a very strong, never-give-up connotation.

If you watched the video above, you will see what perseverance is. It is this skill that I need to build in the next few months.

Another thing that I’m having trouble with is coming up with ideas that I can do as part-time businesses. The problem here is that business that are great for part-time, are so easy to set up that they suffer from almost perfect competition, which means they don’t really make financial sense when done on a small scale.

I’m Back!

inkululeku — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 22:10:55 +0000

It’s been almost a year since I last wrote on this blog… so much for being able to stick to something.A lot has changed since then — I feel I’m more mature. But one thing still remains — I still find myself aware that I’m not where I want to be in life. This basically relates to not having my own business.I was made redundant last year, which was financially beneficial, and I ended up getting a new job. I’m now settled at the new place and it’s a great place to work.

I have also come to the conclusion that the 2 most important things (from my perspective) to starting a business are (a) perseverence and (b) action, in no particular order. I have a problem with perseverence — I get discouraged fairly easily. This is deadly in business — there’s a lot of negativity going around and one needs to be able to shut it out, without being stupid and stubborn.

When I’ve come up with business ideas and shared them with my parents, I have generally got a negative comment from either one of them and this causes me to become discouraged and to scrap the idea and lose motivation. So another thing I’ve decided is never to take their opinion on these kinds of things — I need to trust myself and stick to it.So now that I’ve discovered and admitted (a big step) that I have a problem with perseverence, my next thought was how to correct this.

I know exercise is a good way — you have to resist the temptation to stop when you feel sore. I’m trying to develop my perseverence. I also purchased Lance Armstrong’s book “About the Bike” which I highly recommend. He has amazing perseverance.

Another fairly significant thing I’ve done recently (in fact I started just a month ago), is to create a personal budget. I noticed that I didn’t seem to be saving the amount of money I thought I should be, so I decided to keep track of what I spent, and budget my spending for each month.An unintended result of this budgeting is that I can fairly accurately predict how much money I’ll have in a year if I stick to it, which I think I can.

Now this is a fairly good thing. Great for planning, BUT…. It makes me feel restless, as if there will be no surprises in my life between now and then, just slogging away earning money that is way too predictable for my liking. Hence the rejuvenation of my entrepreneurial spirit.I’ve also started a website recently called Search4Africa. The aim is to raise money through affilliate programs for the benefit of charitable causes in Africa. It works, but I think I’m the only one in the world using it at the moment. It requires perseverance. Because this post is getting a bit long now, I’m going to add another one, talking about “Vasbyt”!

Addicted to Youtube.com

inkululeku — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 06:14:20 +0000

The weather has turned crappy here in London already, so I spent most of the weekend in my room, thinking about my new business plan, playing some piano and …..watching videos on Youtube.com.

There’s a lot of crap, but also some really funny things. Some good lipsyncing videos, one really good imitation of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean (you know, the one where the floor lights up when he steps). This guy was using some cunning stop motion technique and sheets of paper to imitate the lighting up of the floor. Brilliant idea. Search for stop motion and you’ll get some interesting clips.

A bit shaken

inkululeku — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:34:57 +0000

In two weeks, I’m booked on an American Airlines flight from London to New York. So you can imagine that I’m quite shocked at the news of alleged plots to blow up aircraft on that route. Now I have to decide if I should cancel and rather go elsewhere, or bite the stick and fly nonetheless. I realise it’s probably the safest time to fly, but it just feels weird. But Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush, this is the “freedom” that you get for stuffing around in other peoples’ affairs. Sorry to say, but it’s true.

A New Direction?

inkululeku — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:46:55 +0000

I’ve been embarrasingly dormant this week on the business front, and really need to get into it again. I have to try and find a better name for my new website. The current one gives the incorrect image.

Yesterday I came across a photographer on Flickr, Michael Poliza. He’s taken the most amazing wildlife photographs I’ve seen. It really kind of struck a chord, because I’m a very keen wildlife photographer as well, and wish I could do it more. Seeing his photographs, with me having experienced how difficult it can be to photograph wildlife, makes me appreciate it that much more.

My Practical-Bird-Control.com site is also in need of a bit of spicing up and attention. I cannot just leave it. Weekly Adsense revenue is around $4, which is simply not nearly enough.

Partly to blame for my quietness both on my blog and business sites, is having gone to Dublin, and having taken out 3 DVD’s to watch. But now hold me to it. I must make measurable progress this week. On all fronts. I must push myself or I’ll get nowhere. I must focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Just like in photography, FOCUS is so important. FOCUS!

Business Update

inkululeku — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 07:00:13 +0000

I’ve been finding it difficult to wake up recently. I think more than tiredness, it’s the dissatisfaction of being in the rat race. What reason is there to go to work with vigour when I won’t be rewarded for it?

I really need to focus now to try to materialise my business ideas. My practical-bird-control.com site is averaging 24 visitors a day. Occassionally this pops up to 64-ish. This morning I added Google Adsense to the second most popular page. Google Adsense, by the way, has generated $9 income in the past 7 days, which is quite a milestone, as it means that over the period of a year, it will cover the cost of Site Build It!

But it still is not nearly enough to reach my goal. I’ll need around $11 a day for that, approximately. I’m going to pressure myself into doing some work on that site, as well as my new site this week. Last week the Practical Bird Control site was neglected. I need to give it some time. But before that, I want to set up affilliate tracking on my new site.

I’m planning to go and shit on Vodafone on Saturday to get the money back from them that they stole from me.

Back from Ireland

inkululeku — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 06:53:49 +0000

On Sunday evening I arrived back from Ireland. I had a good time, even though the weather wasn’t great. I most enjoyed my drive on Saturday. My Peugot 206 rental car took me west from Dublin to Galway, then moving south, then south-east, driving through Limerick.

Seeing where I was, I know I had to do one thing — visit Tipperary. As we all know, it’s a long way to Tipperary, but I had to go nonetheless. I’m one of those people who cannot be near a goal, but not do that little extra to reach the goal. So I’ve been through Tipperary.

I then headed east north east back to Dublin.

Of Google and Dublin

inkululeku — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 06:24:35 +0000

The Google Adsense ads on practical-bird-control.com have so far yielded $3.02 and $1.98 for yesterday and today, respectively. I’m happy with that considering the site is still only getting an average of just over 20 visitors a day. Very good conversion rates in the 20%’s!
As for my other site, it’s practically functionally complete. The only thing that remains is trying to keep track of which affiliate referred someone, when processing an order through PayPal. I’m not sure entirely how I can do this, so that’s what I’m working on.

I’m off to Dublin for the weekend for a little break. I’m going to have to leave at sparrow’s fart to get to Liverpool Street station to get to Stansted by about 6:30 in the morning. The thing is that the tube doesn’t start working until about 5:30am.

Anyway, it should be a good weekend. I’ll be renting a car for a day so that I can see the countryside. It’s my new way of seeing an area — you see so much more when you can drive around, and believe me, having a car feels like the greatest freedom compared to being a slave to public transport as one is in London. It’s one of the things I miss a lot about SA.

Vodafone SUCKS!

inkululeku — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:02:43 +0000

I got a Vodafone 3G datacard and contract in March, and paid 10 pounds extra so that I could cancel the contract at any time, which I did about 8 weeks ago. I was supposed to be sent my 100 pound deposit back in the post, but have not received it, and see that they’re still deducting monthly payments from my account. I phoned them up and the bastards say they can’t help me — I have to go back into the store in Wimbledon to try get them to do something.

So — NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH VODAFONE, they are thieves!! It pisses me off when companies screw consumers like this.

Goals for the Week

inkululeku — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 07:10:16 +0000

It’s Monday morning and I’m about to leave for work on my new bicycle (cheapest 79 quid bike I could find). My goals for this week are fairly simple: to analyse high-demand keywords for practical-bird-control.com, and compare my pages for those keywords with those of higher ranking sites to try to generate more Google traffic. Most of my traffic is still from MSN.

The other goal is to functionally complete my other site. It’s pretty much done. And maybe I can even make it look decent. Then in the upcoming weeks I’ll have the tough task of marketing it. Marketing is not really my strength, so I’m going to have to push myself to persevere. Anyone can make a product, not everyone can market it.

To you all: have a great week!