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If you were at the last Affiliate Summit, or follow me on Twitter, you probably know I’m in a Mastermind Group with Todd Farmer and Tricia Meyer. In fact, we spoke about the topic at Affiliate Summit West this past January.
The first year of our group was focused on helping each other build our own businesses. But while at ASW, we brought up the idea of building a site together. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, so working together allowed us to work off of each other, and focus on what we did best. While our project turned out great, there are also somethings to look out for when working with a group
Pros
Deadlines
We set a deadline back in late January, and of course did 90% of the work the week before the date that was set! That’s not to say we did nothing for 6 weeks: we agreed on the framework, a theme (u-design), and divvied up the responsibilities to get the job done.
Forced to think creatively
Working alone, I really miss being challenged. With clients, they’ll say they want something; I usually say No
, but then keep thinking until I can figure it out. Todd is a big fan of WordPress, which was used as the foundation for our site. But there were some parts that needed custom programming. The moment I figured out how to use [shortcodes] and the WordPress commenting system within my custom pages, I was thrilled! Now I can take what I learned, and apply it to my other sites.
Low start-up cost
I didn’t have to hire someone to write content, research the merchants, or design the site – Tricia and Todd took care of those things, while I was working on programming. When you have a diverse set of people, it keeps the start-up costs down.
Cons
Threat to friendship
Mixing friends & business typically isn’t a good idea. So far, we’ve managed to work everything out. Business & personal relationships are two different things, and when there’s a problem, get it out there, discussed, and put to rest.
Shared ownership
When the site takes off, and you see it make it’s first $10,000, remember: you get 1/3 of that. However, it’s the teamwork from the beginning that allowed the site to hit the first $10k in commissions.
Democracy
You don’t always get your way. Personally, I custom program everything because I’m a control freak. Todd loves his plugins. Loves. Them. Learn to let go (if I can, anybody can).
Summary
In less than 3 months, we’ve built one of the best-looking sites in this niche, and three months from now, I expect to be pushing some of the existing sites down the rankings. We’re set-up for a strong Q4, and have set exciting and realistic financial goals for the year.