This is episode 3 of 7 of the Authority Hacker New Year Starter Series. If you haven’t been through the previous episodes, we suggest you go and check those out first.
What You Will Learn
- What shiny object syndrome is (hint: it’s a business killer)
- The problem with shiny object syndrome and why it’s so deadly
- Why most people consistently fail to reach a critical mass with their sites
- Our best hacks for beating shiny object syndrome and staying on track
- When you should finally admit defeat and throw in the towel
What Is Shiny Object Syndrome?
Shiny object syndrome is the tendency to get distracted by new ideas.
It’s common in the online marketing space because with so many business models and success stories popping up, people constantly feel like they’re in the wrong business.
As a result, those people drop what they’re doing and start chasing the next big thing, hoping it will turn out better. Of course, it never does because it’s a lie. A mirage.
The Problem With Shiny Object Syndrome
When you see something is working for someone else, it’s easy to attribute that success to what niche they’re in, or what business model they’re using.
But what most people don’t realize is, these success stories are the result of years of hard work and countless failures. And even then, you never hear about how difficult it was for them along the way.
This is “survivorship bias”.
The logical error of concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility — (Wikipedia)
In other words, for every one person who’s making it work, there’s a hundred others who are struggling behind the scenes. You just don’t hear about those guys.
Critical Mass
As with any new business venture, it’s very difficult to find success early on.
In most cases, it takes time and effort to get something off the ground, but even more so to get it to a critical mass where things start to make sense.
If you’ve never felt success before, you won’t know how it’s supposed to work or how long it’s supposed to take. Before long, doubt sets in and it becomes more and more tempting to quit before you ever reach that point.
The truth is, most business models do work. They’re hard, but they work. It just depends how determined you are to see it through.
Examples From Our Careers
Note that our old sites which we mention below are not used anymore. Some have even been repurposed by others.
Mark
Started a travel hacking site called Neverflyecononmy.com. He learned all the basics of building and growing a site and got it to 100-200 visits per day relatively quickly. After 3 months, Mark was making around $100-150 per month in revenue until he abandoned the site after hearing success stories in the relationship/dating niche.
Gael
Started a dating site called Edatefinder.com in late 2010 despite a limited budget. After investing all he could into 10 pieces of content he resorted to spinning other peoples articles to create unique content for free. The site never really took off.
Perrin
Started sites in several different niches including nursing, poetry and dating, as well as building a shaving site, apennyshaved.com, to $3-4000 a month in revenue. Despite his success, he still found himself wanting to invest in new sites rather than focus on growing his current business.
How To Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome
The only way to avoid shiny object syndrome is to choose one thing and stick to it.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re confined to one niche or one business model. The idea (and what we teach inside The Authority Site System) is to start small, master one set of skills, and then use what you already have to build a big business.
In order to do that, you have to tune out of the internet marketing hype. That means NOT consuming every blog post, podcast and video that gets published. That’s just not practical.
Instead, you’ll need to go on a low information diet. Only consuming information as and when you need it will help you easily avoid shiny object syndrome.
Finally, some people find accountability partners and mastermind groups to be invaluable for keeping on track with goals. After all, any source of extra motivation is worth considering.
When Should You Give Up?
We’ve talked about the importance of investing enough time and energy into something before giving up, but there will always be occassions when it does make sense to throw in the towel.
We recommend sticking to the 1 year rule. If you’ve started a site and you’re not seeing promising results after 1 solid year of grinding it out, it’s probably time to move on.
That said, if you are making some money from you site (more than $50 per month), it could be worth stacking a new business model on top of it instead of started from scratch. That could be putting ads on the site, finding more affiliate opportunities or even selling your own products.