I was asked what I first thought was an odd question over the weekend that made me take a moment to reflect. I was discussing the recent sites I developed and a person asked “Why do you do it?”. Why? I didn’t know how to answer the question at first other to say that it keeps me busy, but that’s not the whole answer.

Yes, spending time on these things does keep my busy, but I won’t accept that I am wasting my time on frivolous things. I create these sites and spend hours designing and doing some initial guerrilla marketing to actually make some extra money. I figure if I build a nice site and I highlight some items that I would actually buy, then maybe some of the people that hit the site would be interested in them too. Do I make a fortune? Not even close. I get a small fraction of the cost of goods, and that’s what helps keep the domains active and hosting services. I’ll be happy when these things that ‘keep me busy’ are actually paying for themselves. that would be a gift! I’m close, but not all the way there yet.

I set up the Sexton Enterprise domain to highlight all of my creations. Some of the sites are 90-100% complete and some are less than 50%, but they will always be a work in progress.

I create these things for many reasons. For one, I am a serial entrepreneur and I think of these business ideas almost on a weekly bases. The ‘bug’ hit me when I was young and would talk about starting companies someday that would make me rich and famous. As I got older, I saw holes in certain markets and though about all the business ideas that I could that could fill the gaps and never did anything about them, just to see in months and years ahead that someone else had the same ‘bug’ and actually did something about it. Second, I seem to have a mind for this stuff. I have a knack for looking at a business model or process and finding the holes and ways to make them work more efficiently. One of my first real tasks in an early sales job was to look at the sales process the company was currently using and suggest how I would make it better. I not only found where the bottle necks were in the process, but I suggested the simple corrections to take that would make leads no longer it lost in the shuffle and in turn made it easier for me to do my job and hit 120% of my quota along with the other sales people.

About 2 years ago I had a moment when a friend and I were taking action on a business idea that I inevitably backed out of that really had a small risk associated to it and a big reward if it worked. I got caught up in “life” and put the idea on the back burner and my friend backed out reluctantly too. Some time passed and to my surprise or embarrassment, I was at his house watching TV and while flipping through the channels stopped on a news station and saw them interviewing a guy that was celebrating his success of launching his new business based on the same idea my friend and I had over a year earlier. I could have kicked myself, but my buddy took care of that for me.

Since then as these ideas roll into my head, I jump all over them. Buy the domain, build a site up that effectively targets my products and plans and then either let it sit or continue working on it to the point that I can start getting a few opportunities from it.

There is still a long road ahead for some of the sites, but the idea is out and since I have taken some action on them the momentum takes over until they are competed.

So the answer to the “why” is not just to keep me busy, but to continue the education and the drive to reach that next level. I apply these ideas at the companies that employee me and i take some of the things they teach me into my personal ventures. The more I do, the more I am learning and that cycle is what keeps me going. It’s fun and takes little effort from me and if one of my mini businesses takes off, I could actually live the American Dream and own my own corporation some day.

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