Let me continue with description of the projects that I am currently involved in. This one has been in the works for longest time – about 2 years. After realizing that it takes a while to make some coin in the niche market such as billiard, I had decided to get to something that is more wide spread and should be in a higher demand. I’ve decided to start selling lights for entire house.
While this idea is not a bad one, something was always in the way and it was on a back burner for quite some time. Recently I figured that I have to stop procrastinating and get some coding done. The result is not all that impressive as of today (February 2008), as I had only started implementing design that my good buddy Will have created for me. There are very few products added at this point, but we are working on that. I am thinking that by the end of March we should go live with this one.
Can’t attach a screen shot as of yet, she still looks ugly as I continue to implement design.
This was a failed experiment. I figured that I can keep a small blog about billiard and it wold help me sell on my billiard site. I think I used Xoops or something like that as an engine for the site. I even posted some news and articles couple of times. Trouble was that there is nothing much happening in a world of billiard. I know that sounds sad, but how many people actually spend their time watching billiard on TV?
I posted some tutorials from my personal experience but that did not spark much interest. This lasted for a year. I had not renewed registration for this domain closing down this project.
There is a reason why this project failed – it would have worked if I chose to cover a very dynamic and popular industry or market. Let’s take mobile phones for a second – every month something new and exciting comes along. Many people are chasing the latest and greatest things in this market, remember the iPhone launch? But there are not many people who would be interested in a new line of cues from let’s say Predator.
Basically, if I will ever move into a hot market place I will most definitely try to once again implement this approach. I am not sure I will succeed, but I will try just to see if the dynamics of the market will play it’s part.
Nightshift Development is my little freelance coding outlet. I am working on most of the projects with other developers and designers that I’ve come to know and trust. I have to admit I don’t pick up too many projects at this very moment, simply because I am busy with other tasks and I want to shift my focus away from development for others and start developing for myself.
Well, in it’s current form, Billiard-Place.com is the third reincarnation of my original on-line business. This particular re-incarnation was launched in July of 2007 and so far this is the best performing billiard related site I have been able to put together.
It is build on osCommerce engine with LOTS of customization added to make it the way I wanted it. Site generates approximately 600 unique visitors per day which results in approximately 6-7 orders per day. I have spent two month tweaking the engine and design you can find 4000 products listed on the site (as of February 2008), we still add more every month.
My name is Paul Zubkov, I was born in 1976 which makes me 32 years old (as of 2008). I live in a small town called Richmond Hill, which is just north of Toronto, Canada with my wife Marina and my two kids – Alex and Anya. I run several businesses on line and work 9-5 for a software development company as a Development Team leader. I have always wanted to work for myself, to be in charge of my own life and I have found what I consider to be a pretty good way of achieving this – do business on line.
At this point you might say, Paul you are contradicting yourself, you still work 9-5 and you do have a boss from 9-5, and you will be right. My 9-5 boss is a great businessman whom I admire as a leader and a human being. I have learned a great deal from him and received enormous amount of support and encouragement. Dave, if you are reading this, thank you for all you have done for me so far. I also enjoy writing code and working on the projects that I am involved in. However, by the end of this summer (2008) I am planning on handing in my resignation letter thanking everyone who worked with me and work only for myself.
You might be wondering how can one person combine regular 9-5 job and couple of businesses at the same time – the answer is help and support from my family, 6 hours of sleep on weekdays and lots and lots of coffee.
In this blog I will focus mostly on business side of things, but I probably will publish a thing or two on my personal life development as well.