Every entrepreneur has projects that start with a spark of curiosity and turn into something real within a matter of hours. The Big World Project was one of those for me — a small experiment that taught me some valuable lessons about what a project launch actually looks like when you stop overthinking and just ship something.
The Project Launch
The concept was simple. I had seen a popular web project called the Big Word Project, where you could buy a word and link it to your website. Several knockoffs had appeared, and I thought it would be interesting to put my own spin on it. Instead of words, what about cities?
I bought a basic script for ten dollars, made some PHP modifications, found a database of cities around the world, loaded everything onto a new domain, and launched it. The whole thing cost almost nothing and took a single evening. You could buy your hometown — or any city — at a dollar per letter in the city name, and it would link to whatever website you wanted. Dallas, Texas would cost you six dollars. Memphis, Tennessee was the first city I claimed, linking it to my Elvis niche site.
Was it going to make me rich? No. Was it going to change the internet? Definitely not. But it was live, it was real, and it was mine.
What Quick Project Launches Teach You
Looking back, this tiny project taught me more about entrepreneurship than most of the courses and ebooks I was consuming at the time.
Speed beats perfection. The Big World Project was not polished. The design was basic. The code was functional but not elegant. None of that mattered because it was live and available for people to use. A launched project beats an unreleased masterpiece every single time.
Small experiments build skills. Every project you complete — no matter how small — adds to your toolkit. This one taught me about working with databases, modifying existing scripts, deploying to a new domain, and creating a simple transaction system. Those skills transferred to bigger projects later.
The cost of experimentation is lower than you think. Ten dollars for a script, a few dollars for a domain, and hosting I already had. The total investment was trivial. If the project flopped, I would lose almost nothing. If it worked, I would learn something valuable. That risk-reward ratio is hard to beat.
Fun matters. Not every project needs to be a calculated business move. Sometimes you build something because the idea makes you smile. The enthusiasm you bring to a fun project often produces better results than the grinding obligation you feel toward a should-do project.
The Bottom Line
If you have been sitting on a project idea, waiting until you have the perfect plan, the perfect design, or the perfect moment to launch — stop waiting. Find the smallest possible version of your idea and get it live. You will learn more from a launched experiment than from a month of planning. That is the real lesson from every quick project launch.
Hi Mark:
I started to venture into the world of Internet Marketing about a month ago and stumbled across your site about two weeks ago. I haven’t started anything yet, but have started to play with WordPress and a few of the templates to get the hang of that first. The Big Word Project and your follow-up with the Big WORLD Project is very interesting. I have a couple of ideas I would like to pursue that have a similar focus. Unfortunately, I have not ventured far enough to get to that stage yet. I do have a question though. You state that you purchased the script for the bigwordproject for $10….how and/or where? The projects I would like to pursue would require some scripting and it would save me a lot of time if there were scripts available to me.
Any thoughts?
Max
Max;
In this case, I learned about the script on the DP forums (http://forums.digitalpoint.com). I contacted the developer and confirmed that I would have permission to modify the script. Then, I hired a php programmer from the Philippines on ScriptLance to write the code. ScriptLance is a site where you can post projects and people from all over the world will bid on them.
If you have something specific in mind, I can also possibly recommend a specific person (depending on what it is). For example, if you need WordPress Theme Programming, I recommend Garry Conn over at Garry Conn dot Com. He designed MasonWorld.com.
Hope that helps!
Thanks Mark. I’ll contact Scriptlance when they are ready and see what they can do for me.
So basically exactly like the bigwordproject. I understand its a script that can be sold but your site is in design terms exactly like the big word project???
@Jay. Yes. I bought the BigWorldProject Clone script and asked for permission to modify the dictionary. The result was a world link dictionary.
The bid word project is impressive i agree. but i had issue with the word i wanted being unavailable so i searched and looked around and found another great page called linkinword with the same principles and got the word that i wanted for the same price. you should check it out, http://www.linkinword.com
Hi Mark,
I bought the same script but found I didn’t have a clue on how to install it (without any changes).
Any suggestions as to who I could use to install and set it up for me?
Thanks!