The Rise of a Successful Web Business

The Rise of the Ghillie Monster!

The "seeds" of the Ghillie Monster (Not to be confused with a Gila Monster, another dangerous lizard) were sown in early September of 2008 . Under the awesome tutelage of the folks at Thrive, Reliable Merchandising, LLC was born with with incredible aspirations for its future. We started trying to sell stuff on EBay, but quickly realized this was not life in the fast lane. As we started researching for a website niche, we became more and more intrigued with the idea of a dropshipping site. Sell stuff and just collect the money? That appealed to my innate laziness and the larceny in my soul.

With the outstanding coaching from Thrive's Team #1 I narrowed a few choices of topics down to Ghillie Suits. If anyone asks where I came up with ghillie suits, I have no clue. The actual building of "GhilliesandStuff.com" was actually a lot of fun. It was a totally new experience and I learned a ton of new stuff with the aid of my coaches. I wish I could remember all the names of the people I worked with and thank them for their patience. I'm sure I was not easy to cope with at times.

One of the most difficult parts of the process was finding product suppliers. It took a lot of digging, but I finally found enough to keep me in business. On November 12 of that year, the Ghillie Monster lost its virginity with it's first sale(which was canceled later for a reason I don't recall) and another the following day. Sales continued to trickle in through the rest of that year, I and had a few sales along the way this year and are continuing to pick up. To date the Ghillie Monster has grossed a bit over $5,000.00.

Reliable Merchandising also has 3 other websites with another under construction. Those sites are not doing as well as the Ghillie Monster, but they are all young yet. Ghillies has a PR of 2 while the others only recently achieved a PR of 1. I am told by others that it takes a couple of years before you start realizing anything from a website and from where I sit that seems to be a realistic figure. Then on the other hand, I hear a lot about a "hump" that has something to do with 1 year, and I still have a couple of months to go to reach that milestone. Rob has been diligently working with me to get me over that "hump".

While we start making money with these first sites, my eventual aim is to have an even dozen of them. I think the rest of them will be info sites with a lot of affiliate stuff. Eliminates the product worries. The Ghillie Monster was my firstborn and will always be my pride and hopefully joy. I look forward to working with you all until such time as we can declare the Monster a success.

James
www.ghilliesandstuff.com