Rich Atkinson

This year I have decided to set myself a number of goals to complete before year end. I hope that by starting my new blog with these goals, I will provide myself with a means to measure my successes through the year.

In no particular order:

1. Develop 3 Geodomains

My main objective this year is to start a company that I hope, in years to come, will grow into a profitable long-term internet venture. I have years of experience with the web, as a manager and a developer, and I have an elementary clue about marketing. My aim here is to make use of this to create a new lifestyle for myself, away from the 9-5 routine. It’s going to be hard work, but I think the rewards will be worth it.

A big thank you to three highly motivational people who are kind enough to share their focus, vsion and energy with the rest of us: Sahar Sarid, Frank Schilling and Steve Pavlina.

2. Develop 1 non-geo domain with the aim of creating a high-traffic, high-value web based tool. One idea I am toying with is a an auction aggregator for current web-based domain auctions.

3. Start working-out regularly again. I used to work out seven days a week, and became fit enough to complete a 24 hour adventure race. I’ve since lost focus, and hence become slack about working out (probably not helped by an increase in beer and urger intake). So, starting this week – I am going to work-out 4 days a week. Surfing and swimming are acceptable as workouts, but at least 2 work-outs must be cardio endurance.

4. Establish a 2-tier savings/investment plan and pay money into both every week. Working as an hourly rate contractor, I have an irregular income which has meant that I have a history of sporadic saving. I’m pretty sure I would do better if I were to save a little less but 100% regularly. I will aim to find 15% net income for each savings tier, each week.

5. Start a business – I will get an ABN, and start running my websites as a consolidated business.

6. Complete my Private Pilots License. i can’t believe it’s already 2 years since I started pilot training! I nearly completed the course before taking a huge break in May 07. Well, I’m settled again now – so there is no reason not to complete the course and get my pilots license this year.

7. Buy one premium generic .com domain with plenty of type-in traffic equivalent to ~$1000 p/a. At this point, I have no idea how much a domain like this should cost.

8. Learn Ruby on Rails, or something similar. I am a competent developer in a number of languages, but I see no point in using enterprise type technologies for my own projects when there are highly productive language / framework combo’s like Ruby on Rails (even Rails is starting to show it’s age) to use instead. One of my projects (probably goal 2, above) will make use of a Rails type framework – probably Ruby on Rails.

I think if I achieve all of these, I’ll be a huge step closer to financial independence by next Christmas; not to mention be in a position to add fly-away holidays to my goals for 2009.