Up to Speed!

I should give credit where its due-- in this case my Mom. She came home fm Mumbai,in Feb2005, carrying a paper clipping in her bag about how CL was tutoring kids online and she wondered why I couldnt do something similar. Well, I had always said I was fond of teaching, I had 24hrs Internet access and I was decently good at Math so I thought "why the hell not?"

And so I started.

I took it nice and slow at first. While I researched the competition, I also started posting at various sites, looking at the type of questions being asked, why particular posters were more enthusiastically received and what worked for the student.I also made a list of the things I would need to seriously take up this.Top on my list was a computer(though that didnt arrive) till Jan2006.

I researched hosting options, domain name registrations, compared competitors and drew rough drafts of what I wanted the site to look at.
However, my real piece of luck came when I met 64BitWhore via PagalGuy.com(India's largest MBA forum). He really kick-started everything.I hadnt yet registered a domain name so over 2 sleepless days and nights we thrashed over a domain name and I finally registered that. A little later I got my server as well. He really helped me a lot--fm Domain Name selection+registration to setting up the pages and the advertising and general advice and really a whole lot more that I can put down here.

I registered the domain on 13/8. 13/8!!! 6 whole months after I had started doing this. Sure I had a Tripod page up but that couldnt really be considered anything worthwhile. 6 months is a long time. Had I registered earlier, the search engines would have found me earlier, and perhaps I would be better off than I am today.

My mistakes?? Plenty!!
I waited too long to register a domain name.
I really didnt search thoroughly for the lowest prices. I found a hosting solution with Rediff that would have cost me 2.5k. Instead I got everything done for less that 1.5K.
I hadnt researched payment vendors enough. I was going to go with PayPal!!
I had no idea how I was going to advertise or make the site popular

Guess I've come a long way since then. Still there are plenty of things I could improve. But isnt that the best part on entrepreneurship? Learning and whatever mistake you make, is --well whatever... :-)

p.s. Though it may look like I make a post only when I make a sale, that's not true! Been working on this for a while but yeah sale count is now 3! :-)