My first steps on the WWW world began in photography, as I got tired of sharing my pictures in meetings telling the story behind the shots over and over. This lead me to learning how to build my own webpage and buying my first domain in 1998 (I still have it). I didn't have money expectations, it was a hobby.

Originally coded for desktop, this was my transition to the web, and soon my new skills (photo and coding for the web) landed me one of the best paying jobs I ever had on a big media company (so, my hobby paid me well).

Later created my second website (the largest), also related to pictures and other stuff (limited by specifics, if there is no problem let me know and I'll tell). This website grew more than I expected, and soon the hobby became a passion, the website also became an authority in it's field, lots of traffic, emails, requests, offers, and job/freelance opportunities.

Along the way I had direct advertisement and also tried Adsense, this lead to solid monthly income for years. I felt tempted to quit my job and expand, but didn't feel like the way to go, so I didn't (and I'm glad, because the web changes constantly). Later I decided to create other websites, but replicating the original success felt really hard, and kind of managed to hit it, while failing on some websites. Then decided to sell a domain while killing other websites (absorbing them into my largest project).

There is a point were growing makes you more traffic, opportunities and money.
But there is also a point where growing makes everything heavier and slower.

All these years I've been a one man band.

&#8593; This felt ok for some time, but later it felt like a burden, it's not the same to redesign your only website... versus all 8, 5, or 3, same goes to link building <-- this is the hardest task I think, at least for me. At some point I felt like this wasn't for me. I don't want to sound negative, I'm just explaining things that make sense when you consider challenges like... having your content constantly stolen, this really hits hard, and it's not the same when you only have 1 website that only you and your cousins visit, versus a website with a solid reputation and lots of traffic (with you at the center), this means if you get paid you get all the money, but if you get punched several times: all the punches land on your face.

I tried expanding with collaborations, but nobody takes care of your dog better than you do. Paying? I don't feel comfortable about it, because of the same principle... people don't take care of your dog, and plus you have to train them (revealing your business model, sort of).

At this point (2026) I'm about to post again on 2 of my websites, this will take a while because I'm rewriting the whole framework and CMS on a new coding language, so, being a one man band sounds different now that you know.

What about you?

Always been an entertainer, builder, action kind of guy starting age 6 (70 years ago). Learned all kinds of things along the way, did many different jobs, ended up a music teacher and minor rock star regionally for a number of years. Went through two marriages (out-lived them, sadly) and still had that "be in front" kind of attitude. One of my "jobs" was accounting, which led to computers, which led to coding, which led to BBS and FidoNet over "blazing 110 baud" acoustic modems to "meet" other adventurers in the ether. Building a hobby BBS eventually consisting of 16 phone lines 24/7/365 on hardware I built myself and all paid out of pocket with "no income expected"---

The web changed things very quickly. All the "hard work" was done elsewhere. Time to be creative. Put up a hobby site---exploded!---and that was while I was still doing all that music (50 years) and folks in that field came to be clients for sites created by yours truly. Managed a few for $$$ for some, others where charged to set up and hand over. Later that expanded to a local manufacturer looking to have a web presence. THAT changed everything as REAL MONEY got involved, real experience with home grown systems, large database, graphics, audio, video...

Hay Day followed. Eventually looked at the (then) early Adsense and thought: "I can do better than that!" and did so. Difference was I wasn't selling links to paste, I was selling REAL ESTATE on great sites. A cadre of clients (later others who begged to join!) got my expertise in matching and acquiring strong "advertisers, sponsors, related markets" at fixed rates for x views GUARANTEED per month for 1-3 year terms---and did so for the next near quarter century. At the end, when it was time to pour cool water over the fevered brain there were three employees and three in the sales department. When I offered it to them instead of the open market they came through (took two years to pay it off, but they managed!)

Meanwhile, somewhere along the way that first hobby site was rescued from its original tables layout to RWD (and not all that "great" a version) and is still up. Still going strong. Still being scraped, copied, but NEVER out of the top five in that niche. It is that unique. :)

I guess you could say I've learned enough to be journeyman at most aspects, but not a master at any as far as the coding and hardware is concerned. but what I HAVE been is what I have always been: an entertainer, one who knows PEOPLE, what they like, don't like, tolerate, hate, love...

You, a guitar (I play 15 instruments), walk into a room of 10,000... you either PERFORM or get booed off the stage. The web isn't any different. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE and what they LIKE and then... GIVE IT TO THEM.