Most founders come up with an idea they think is cool / useful and decide to create it. Not until later do they realize, “oh crap, how do I get people to use this?”

I took the opposite approach with my first web venture. I decided who is a group of people I have a clear path to reaching, then figured out something I could sell to them.

The target… real estate agents.

The premise was it’s a very competitive landscape with a lot of choices. I wanted to remove those endless choices and make it easier for people to select an agent.

It was a simple site where agents could subscribe to zip codes of a neighborhood or city to be the sole “expert” agent of that area. Agents would pay a per zip code monthly subscription fee for as many zip codes as they wanted, and a per lead fee.

I reached out to agents pre-launch and offered them an introductory lower monthly subscription fee… “reserve you preferred zip codes now before another agent secures them.” Scarcity is a strong motivator.

A few hundred zip codes were subscribed to, which gave me revenue to work with before the site launched.

The site did fair but it was a struggle with the real estate market falling through the floor. Ultimately I ended up winding it down in 2008.

So my first internet venture was in the books.

Through the experience, I learned search engine marketing, which lead me to being hired at an agency to manage a multi-million dollar paid search account.

So while my first web venture wasn’t the success I had hoped for. It lead me to a great job, that I would have never otherwise had.

You never know where life will take you but the more effort you put into your journey, the more likely you’ll end up in a place you’re happy, even if it isn’t the place you had in mind.