Business at Internet speed: Super-Bowl-Rentals.com case study

Ordinarily, I don't write about my own business (ad)ventures here on About, but this is such a powerful case study that I just had to share. The lessons from this are incredibly valuable and encouraging to anyone trying to start up an Internet business.

It all started last Saturday when my wife and I decided to see if we could still rent our house out for the Super Bowl. So we checked out all the web sites that were well-positioned on Google for a search on "super bowl rentals". We were sadly disappointed to find out that even that late in the game, they wanted $100, $200, $400, even$1,200 (!) to list it for rent. Well, having read several recent articles about how these sites were really over-selling the opportunity, and that for most people it was a pipe dream, I decided better.

But, being an eternal optimist, and knowing my wife would never forgive me for not at least making an attempt, I figured I'd go ahead and set up a site. And I figured I could go ahead and let all my friends know about it, and if anyone wanted to list, they could. I'd just take a small referral fee if and only if they actually got a rental out of it. Zero risk—something none of the other sites were doing.

A few people were nay-sayers, calling it "pimping out my friends". However, my friends who ended up listing their sites were all extremely appreciative, and more than happy to share the rewards if anything came out of me being willing to share my efforts. Plus, by being cooperative, we create more visibility, a better-looking site, and all at minimal expense, compared to us all trying to advertise individually. I get content for my site, they get zero-risk advertising, and if they actually get a deal, we all benefit. If no one gets a deal, there's hardly any time invested. I did them a favor, they did me a favor, and when all's said and done, we've all learned from the experience, and maybe I've even created something of value for the future—some publicity and a highly visible site to be a business for next Super Bowl.

So, I put this site together for next to nothing:
- $7.95 for the domain from Go Daddy
- $0.00 for WordPress, the open-source blog software I used to build this site
- $0.00 for the hosting, because I already have a multi-domain hosting account with OpenGeek.biz


And, I put the whole site together in less than two hours! I spent another couple of hours ironing out a couple of things, posting the ads for my friends, and promoting the site. In less than a day's total effort, I created everything that you see before you here.

Sunday night, I launched the site. Monday, I entered the additional ads. And by Tuesday night...

Yes, Super-Bowl-Rentals.com has gone from idea to a #2 Google ranking in just three days, just 48 hours after launching the site. If you want to learn how I did that, check out Lee LeFever's article, Using a Weblog to Achieve #1 Rankings in Google.

That's business at Internet speed.