I have been involved in on-line marketing since the early 1980’s.  Before the World Wide Web was established computer users were using modems to dial into BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) networks where you could download files and software. 

I worked for a company that developed and marketed a 300 baud modem (and you were lucky if it would connect at 115 baud, 75 was common).  Modems then were good for downloading text files and very small programs.  Our company eventually developed the first fax-modem which PC Magazine called “The product of the decade”.

On the side I developed a shareware product called “The Credit Report Repair Kit” and distributed a demo version free among thousands of BBS networks across the US.  Other than BBS utilities, like Telix and PKzip, it was the most widely downloaded shareware packet.  User’s that downloaded the demo version could print an order form and mail in a check to purchase the complete software package. 

The software package used legitimate loopholes in the credit reporting system that could (at the time) be legally exploited. I sold over 20,000 packages at $45 a piece.  Just before I reached one-million in gross sales many states began passing laws banning the selling of credit repair information.  I would have challenged the laws if it wasn’t for the fact that lawmakers also changed credit reporting practices making the loop holes used in the software obsolete.  As far as I know, this was the first credit report repair kit in the form of a software package.  I do know that it was one of the most successful BBS shareware products. Thus was the begining of my venture into E-commerce.

In the early 90s I was marketing products on networks like CompuServe.  I wrote custom software that would scan the CompuServe pages then contact CompuServe users with offers that were in their interest range.  This was extremely lucrative.

In 1994 and 1995 I was toying with the World Wide Web.  It was incrediably easy to bring in massive amounts of traffic.  Search engines like AltaVista were all too willing to list any site or page you built.  When Yahoo! was officially launched in 1995 I was sending in websites to Yahoo! and within a week would get a great listing sending me as many as 25,000 unique visitors a day to a single site.

While a massive amount of traffic sounds great, you have to remember that ISPs were not prepared for this.  Server downtime and slowdowns were all too common, not to mention the thousands of dollars in bandwidth that had to be paid every month to keep the servers running.  Today, I know of ISPs that offer for $10 per month for the same bandwidth and more service than what I used to pay $5,000 per month for just 10 years ago.

Another problem was what to do with all that traffic?  There were only a handful of sites that would pay for traffic, and even then many of them were crooked or didn’t pay in a timely fashion.  Credit card orders could not be automated, since technically it was illegal to accept them over the internet.  Instead the websites would list a telephone number to call to place a phone order.  Many websites would “bend the rules” and take credit cards over the internet then process them as phone orders.

In 1996 my business was one of the first companies to be approved to accept credit cards over the internet.  For the next 5 years it was almost impossible to do anything wrong.  Those years are called “The Gold Rush Years” for a reason.

In 2001 the bubble burst, NASDAQ crashed and the internet world was turned upside down.  Affiliate programs that had paid like clockwork went bankrupt.  Luckily I had sold off many of my sites, but it was a real shocker to have many of my domain names re-appraised.  I had several that previously had an estimated value in the $70,000 - $90,000 range were now coming back with appraisals of $5,000 to $6,000.

I used this as an opportunity to pursue my life’s dream of producing feature films.  I was able to go into semi-retirement by putting my sites onto auto-pilot.  Now I’m able to work part time, just by following internet trends and tweaking my sites for current conditions.
My life would be great if it wasn’t for everyone telling me how “lucky” I was to have gotten into the business when I did.  I keep telling them that it wasn’t luck and I can point out many people that lost their shirts in the internet marketing business.  They just look at me as if I’m crazy.

The other day, I was talking to a friend of my wife’s who had just lost her job.  She was almost in tears not knowing what she was going to do.  I told her to start up some websites.  “Be smart about it and you’ll do okay” I told her.  That’s when I go another lecture about how lucky I was and that I couldn’t do it again in today’s market.

Is that so?  I told her about my last two sites that are doing just fine.  I explained to her that I can easily start up a website, divert traffic from one of my other sites, buy some AdWords for more traffic and BAM! I’m making money.  It then dawned on me that I’m using traffic from sites that were established years ago and have become traffic cows.  I began to wonder if I could still build a site, market it, and make a six-figure income without a large outlay of cash or jump starting it with my own traffic?

That’s how the idea for ProjectGreenbacks.com came about.  I have some friends and family members that want me to teach them how to set up sites and make money.  So I figured, if I have to do all this work and research, I may as well put it online for them and everyone else to see.  That will hold my feet to the fire.

So here is my plan:
I will research and develop money making websites that can easily be duplicated.  I will give full disclosure as to how I built them, what was used, how traffic was generated, how much money they are making and so forth.  As with anything in business, some of them will make a little bit of money, some of them will make no money, but some will become magic and make lots of money.