Singapore Expats

I thought I’d share my ongoing experience of launching a cheap, less than 10k Singapore dollars, online startup here in Singapore. My Sin galore wife and I have always enjoyed talking about business ideas (cock) over a glass of wine, or 4, and finally decided to give it a try. We had an idea that might work, plus we’d just sold one of the kids and had a spare 10k!

First things first…

The Website
We needed a domain name but before we could register a “.com.sg”

Puff the magic dragon is on his way! remove the startup location link, and use a signature address maybe better accepted. Otherwise you are breaking forum advertising rules, your other post is direct advertising too. So if you are quick, you may remain in the good books!

any users of Google’s marketing suite using this forum?

Here is my 2 cents worth, from experience;

Adwords – Advertise your site on Google’s search pages
Google has devised a cunning algorithm (x + y * z = $$) to determine who’s advertisements are displayed and in what order. Take for example 200 advertisers pick the keywords “rip off”

ksl, he wasn't quick enough. I spotted it from HK yesterday. Now I'm watching. He has, of course modified it and removed my admonishment)


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(He's starting up just like BodyBlitz did (and you as well if I remember correctly).

sundaymorningstaple wrote:ksl, he wasn't quick enough. I spotted it from HK yesterday. Now I'm watching. He has, of course modified it and removed my admonishment)


tic.....toc.....tic.....toc......


(He's starting up just like BodyBlitz did (and you as well if I remember correctly).

Kind of though I never cut and paste, though some story's can be interesting. Google add words money down the drain! I actually got my website up and running for less than 200$ and accumulated my own traffic!

ksl wrote:

sundaymorningstaple wrote:ksl, he wasn't quick enough. I spotted it from HK yesterday. Now I'm watching. He has, of course modified it and removed my admonishment)


tic.....toc.....tic.....toc......


(He's starting up just like BodyBlitz did (and you as well if I remember correctly).

Kind of though I never cut and paste, though some story's can be interesting. Google add words money down the drain! I actually got my website up and running for less than 200$ and accumulated my own traffic!

Assuming the link in your signature is to your site, i c you have an alexa ranking of about 6.5mil (bodyblitz's 9.1mil), how long has the site been running for?

Surprise!! u’ve had 300+ unique visitors to your website in the last 2 hrs.

I know 300+ visitors isn’t a huge amount in the scheme of things but…. It’s pretty good when I compare it to the results we achieved spending 11k+ earlier. Basically I found a site that posts shopping discounts, sales coupons etc… for Singaporean companies. We passed them a copy of our launch giveaway and the next day we were swamped with users. Why all the users?

Well… since then I discovered an interesting tool, namely Alexa (chuck that word in Google it could be worth your while). I checked their web stats using Alexa and it turns out they pull in a huge amount of traffic, mainly from subscribers to their RSS feed. Even though their site looks like shit and is difficult to read, I say “Hats off to them”

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getting dangerously close if you ask me. Hopefully he takes a hint although he seems more like bodyblitz though.

"dangerously close"

guys, seriously i've done all that you have asked (KSL). I'm a legit person who's trying to share their real life experiences of launching a startup. I like to think what i have to say might be useful to others.

With no intention of sounding rude, if you have some advice please offer it rather than talking in riddles. Who is bodyblitz and what do they have to do with me?

mrlily, you have a PM.

Like KSL, I also started an online business (in the heady dotcom days, and only because I was bored and wanted to learn something new) for under S$200, never spent anything (other than my own time) on marketing, have been running for 10 years now (part time, it's just a hobby for me) with a profit margin of over 50% and believe I am the worldwide market leader in my admittedly very narrow field.
If I had to spend S$10k to start, it would never have happened!

Due to personal commitments, I'm closing the business at the end of the year. If anybody wants to have it, PM me. I'm selling Indonesian Arts.

Greetings,
Frank

please pm me your link, i'm not interested in buying your business, just the stats and some more specifics on its history (please?).

such as;
is this purely an online venture or do you have a premise?
alexa ranking
etc...

Thanks for the PM. i couldn't handle anymore traveling, i do enough between Singapore and the middle east already.

We are trying to setup an online service only, therefore the name of the game is users for us. The only overhead we'll accept is the monthly web hosting fee. Your business is more the typical import/export type with an online presence.

appreciate the info.

thanks mrlily for sharing! Your site does look professional enough. I am interested to know what is the software you used to administer your site.

mrlily wrote:

ksl wrote:

sundaymorningstaple wrote:ksl, he wasn't quick enough. I spotted it from HK yesterday. Now I'm watching. He has, of course modified it and removed my admonishment)


tic.....toc.....tic.....toc......


(He's starting up just like BodyBlitz did (and you as well if I remember correctly).

Kind of though I never cut and paste, though some story's can be interesting. Google add words money down the drain! I actually got my website up and running for less than 200$ and accumulated my own traffic!

Assuming the link in your signature is to your site, i c you have an alexa ranking of about 6.5mil (bodyblitz's 9.1mil), how long has the site been running for?

I have a site rank of 3.4 million a very long way from 1st position Though i have 35,000 unique hits every 3 month, Alexa is only a very rough guide and is far from correct. But in 4 years its down from 12 million....were before 100% was over seas now it is 85% hits in Singapore 15% from other countries.

Though this website is purely for information, it's changed several times since the launch, and i haven't done any online marketing, or adjustment of tags.
I have a sleeping website, which i used for branding cameras world wide, it served it's purpose very well and i had 17 world wide distributors, purchasing digital cameras, my cost was just the hosting at 5$ a month and the time and effort i put in doing the online marketing, which was many hours in the beginning learning the ropes.
Domain names are very important so when choosing you must try to find the most used words, mine was pretty obvious for my website.

It is all about what you want to achieve and how you approach the problems...were is your stock?

Actually having looked at your website, with no contact address, I can now see, the objective of the business idea....
You need to be offering this service to second hand book shops too, whereby you can generate income from their selling online in Singapore, though it would be pay on collection, because credit cards are not used much.
Do you spend most time in Yemen?