30 Day Challenge: Day 1, A Magnificant Symphony

Pastor Cedric told me about the Thirty Day Challenge a few months ago. The Thirty Day Challenge is about making your first $10 online. I've decided to participate for a full 30 days to learn how to grow my own Internet business and generate income online without spending a dime. That's right, this is going to cost zip, diddly, nothing, nada, ziltch. The entire training program is free ... other than the investment of my time. No credit card required.

I will report back to you on my progress over the course of the 30 days.

The host of the program is Ed Dale. Ed uses the first lesson to demystify the four elements critical to the success of every online business, reviewing some essential tools and showing ways to get great ideas for our new business.

There are three videos that run for about 30 minutes in Lesson 1:

1. SYMPHONY OF FOUR PARTS - Ed covers the core building blocks common to every Internet business. I learned in this lesson that the market research should occur before the identification of a product. This is the opposite of what I've seen occur for most business owners. Most of us have a product or service in mind ... then (MAYBE) we do market research. Ed gave a compelling reason for flipping the script if we want to build a successful online business.


2. TOOLS OF THE TRADE - Ed gives a quick run down of the tools of the trade and suggests which to install first. The section about 'tools of the trade' was also full of new information for me. I knew about some of the tools like Twitter, Google Reader and YouTube. However, I wasn't using tools like StumbleUpon, Twhirl or FriendFeed until taking this lesson. Twhirl is especially helpful because I have a Twitter account for my personal and professional use. Twhirl allows me to handle them both with a single logon.


3. THE GETTING OF IDEAS - Ed shares his favorite method for getting new site ideas, and a cool way to have news about them delivered straight to our email box or newsreader. The lesson ends with a homework assignment to identify 5-10 marketable ideas. My plan right now is to focus on gaining online traction for my current offline consulting business. I guess I will find out in future lessons whether that is acceptable or not.

I would be interested in feedback from any villager that completed the 30 Day Challenge. Do you recommend it for others?