My Dotcom Is Gone, But Not My Budget

After a year of trying to sell PageAMonth, a spreadsheet budget software file I wrote and still find is better for keeping track of my bottom line than any program like Microsoft Money or Quicken, and not selling even one of them during that whole year despite lining up two vendors, I had my nbkauffman.com site removed from my webhost today.

A year ago I spent a lot of time building up charts and help pages, but I had to admit I had committed a fatal flaw from the getgo: I had set up a commercial website to sell a product by using my own name for that website instead of something suggesting what I was selling, a site name which had no chance of attracting hits from anyone looking for a budget program.

I call my spreadsheet PageAMonth Budget, and I should have started a website called pageamonthbudget.com instead of nbkauffman.com. Had I done so, I might have been able to attract enough traffic through the search engines to interest someone in trying it. But in the past year I only got a few hits from random users, and I wasn't going to spend even more money on the host's offers to increase my traffic with their wonderful expertise.

I screwed up. I screwed up by letting my ego get in the way again. What will I now do with the budget? Well, I'm not sure. I'll continue to use it personally, of course, as I always have. I wouldn't use anything else, frankly; it has worked great for me for many years. And it's still for sale as Mybudget.xls on spreadsheetmarketplace.com for $19.95 if anyone wants to take a look at it. But I'm not going to hold my breath; they haven't sold any in a year either.

As for nbkauffman.com, I didn't bother to move it to another host. I just let it disappear into sitenotfound oblivion. I felt there was no good reason to use it anymore. It was just an ego site, and I don't need it any more. But I was thinking about writing a small book instead, on how to start a home budget using the experience I used to develop PageAMonth. Maybe I could peddle a manuscript more successfully than I did a spreadsheet file.

Hmm. Maybe. Or maybe I should try eBay. People buy Virgin Mary patterns on burnt toast on eBay. Maybe someone would buy my nifty spreadsheet budget.