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GoNintendo '��End of Day'�� thought - How GoNintendo came to be: Part 5

by rawmeatcowboy
15 January 2011
GN Version 3.1

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What an amazing experience it was to write out this series. It was almost like a form of self-therapy! I hope my elementary writing and late-night thought process didn’t make the reading experience any less enjoyable. Please, have at the final entry in this series. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing. See you in a few, short hours.

This is it, my friends. We’re at the final part of this feature on how GoNintendo got started. It’s been such a fun story to bring to you guys. As the week went on, I realized how many other great stories concerning the site there are. I’ll have to bring those to you guys at another time. For now, let’s wrap this baby up!

Part 5 - The big decision…and the rest is history

A very bad situation was just about to land upon me. My future was rushing at me, and I had to make a decision whether I wanted to or not. The real problem was, I had no idea what direction to take. If GoNintendo was going to continue on, I had to come into a sizable chunk of money to keep things up and running. If I didn’t head in that direction, it meant I was going to head back to school or find a part-time job. A pretty serious decision to make!

After talking it over with a few friends and family, I decided that it would be pretty damn stupid of me to just let GoNintendo disappear. By this time, I had been working on the site for nearly a year. That encompassed the run from blogger to GoNintendo. I spent the time, money and effort putting together this little corner of the internet, and letting all that go to waste now wasn’t really a smart decision. Why pour your heart and soul into something just to throw it away when the going got rough? While I didn’t know what my far future would end up being, I knew that my near future was going to be spent keeping the site alive.

As I’ve said, the tricky part was finding out just how in the world I was going to do that. I knew that I needed a substantial amount of cash fairly quickly, as the hosting bills were piling up. Getting a part-time job wouldn’t make sense, because it would take time away from GoNintendo. I could get a job and pay for the site, but not be around to keep the site working! If I paid someone to do updates for me, then I wouldn’t be pushing GoNintendo forward as I wanted to. On top of that, money would be going to a new staffer and hosting! That solution simply wouldn’t work. What in the world was I going to do?

This is when my thinking process went a level deeper. If I was serious about keeping the site alive, I needed to be willing to take some drastic measures. Whether I could make the cash to keep the site alive for a few months or a whole year, I just need to make money in order to pull that off. Just how far was I willing to go to make that cash, within the confines of the law?! I sat and thought about what options I had, and I eventually came to one answer that was pretty damn painful.

I didn’t really have a huge gaming collection anymore. I had gotten into the habit of trading in games to get new ones, so I only ever had a few games around at one time. Trading in systems/games and going for the cash option wasn’t even going to take care of one month of service. Unfortunately, that meant I only had one other area of my life that would be able to pull in some fast money. It was my other hobby at the time, and I was extremely proud of it. Sadly, I got the feeling that it was going to have to disappear.

As I’ve said a few times on the site/podcast, I am a big fan of anime. I’m the typical otaku, I guess. Gaming and anime were my two hobbies, and only in the couple years leading into the blogger page had I gotten into collecting anime series’. I would budget money to pay for the things I needed in life, put a certain amount away to save, and then the rest would usually be put towards anime. I had amassed quite a collection of DVDs by the time GoNintendo came around, and boy was I proud of them. Seeing that collection on my shelves really made me smile, and I was introducing friends and family to things that they would have otherwise never seen.

I kid you not, that anime collection was my pride and joy. Just looking at the boxes would make me happy, and then snuggling up with Mom Brain or getting together with some friends for an anime session was a blast. The anime wasn’t only fun to collect and watch, it now also had great memories tied to it. I would look at certain box sets and remember the great times and discussions I had with friends/family about that particular show. Now I was looking at the collection as something that would soon be gone.

I literally had no other option that could work out quickly enough. Did I care about GoNintendo and the readers enough to sell my entire anime collection? I didn’t even know where the future would take me! Would GoNintendo become something that could be my full-time job? Would I end up selling my collection to save the site, and then meet the same fate just a few months later? Of course, all this back-and-forth thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I had to look at the situation I was in and where I wanted to be, and then push forward with what had to be done.

I’ll never forget sitting down with a pen and paper to write out all the anime I had. Adding each one to the list was a really painful experience. It was like I was going to sell away my memories and good times. All that money spent on a hobby that was now probably going to bring back a fraction of the cash it cost. Things only got worse when I put the entire collection up on eBay. Seeing it actually out there for someone to snatch up made the situation that much more real. The bids coming in made me realize that I had sealed my fate. The anime was going, and I was moving ahead with GoNintendo.

That day finally came when I had to package up every single piece of anime I collected. Some friends asked why I didn’t keep a few sets around for myself. I simply couldn’t do that, because seeing just a part of the collection would make me miss the rest of it that much more. It all got packed away…into 3 giant boxes. The collection was shipped off to the winning bidder over in California, and just like that everything was gone. I was now $2,800 richer, but that cash was going right back into the site.

As the months went on, I continued to wonder if I had made the right decision. Traffic was still growing, the attention on the site was getting more widespread, and the bills kept getting more and more expensive. Just four months down the road and I was almost back in the same position again. Of course, during those four months I was trying to find ways to monetize the site. I went into this entire blogging situation blind, and I had even less of an idea how to make the site into something that could fund itself and still give me money to live off of. With another bill around the corner and barely enough money to cover it, I was pretty sure that my run on GoNintendo was going to end.

It was literally the week before my next bill was due. I had this horrible feeling that everything was coming to an end. That’s right when a rather interesting email came in. To my surprise, this email was from an advertising agency that wanted to work with me on GoNintendo. I had heard some offers before, but all of those opportunities were coming from groups that weren’t going to offer me hardly anything. Their deals would hurt me more than they would help me…but this one new email was different. The people involved were actually GoNintendo readers. They didn’t just claim to read the site and like the content. They knew who I was and what I had been doing, and just how much work I was putting into it.

The situation ended just as a fairytale would. This group of wonderful people were able to work out a deal with me, and the site was actually going to become something that was profitable. While the specifics on payment were all based on traffic, I nearly cried when I got my first check. I had actually received enough money to pay the next hosting bill, and save a little money on top of that. It wasn’t enough to spend on the site and buy the necessary items to live, but it would be down the road. I was fine with living a bit lean for awhile. Making enough money to pay hosting and still save was enough for me! If I just saved up a little bit each month from there on, I could reach a point where the site might actually turn into a real job.

And that, my friends, leads us to where we are this day. I ran the blogger page/GoNintendo for 2 years without making a profit. The cash that did come in from small campaigns went right back into the site. It wasn’t until this new advertising group picked me up that everything started to take a turn for the better. Looking back, I know I went into this situation as ill-prepared as possible. Everything that went wrong could have likely been avoided if I planned better, but I had no idea what I was getting into when I started. I also didn’t know that this random blog I started would become something I was so passionate about, let alone a job!

I have so many people I have to thank for making this situation what it is now. Of course, I have to thank the guys at Hammersuit for always having my back with advertising. If they didn’t swoop in when they did, I would have most likely closed the site down. I am still with them today, and I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys to be involved with. They made a dream come true, continue to do so to this day, and I didn’t even start out on the blogger page knowing that my dream job was down the road.

I also have to thank my friends and family for believing in me. They didn’t scoff at what I was doing for a living, even if it came with no cash and ridiculous hours. Those friends and family are all still with me to this day, and they have my back more than ever. I don’t know how I was lucky enough to be involved with such a wonderful group of people to surround myself with. My job may not be traditional and may have seemed insane when no money was coming in, but they all believed in me.

I especially have to thank Mom Brain. For those that don’t know, Mom Brain (Danielle Nugent) is my long-time girlfriend. We’ve been dating for 11 years now, and I couldn’t ask for a better girlfriend. For Mom Brain to allow me to take this path with my future still amazes me. She didn’t care that I made no cash. She knew that I was passionate. She could see how much this meant to me, and just how tickled pink I was when the next great thing happened to the site. She was at my side the entire time, and still is to this day. Some girls might think she was crazy for staying by my side, but I’m so happy to have proven the challenge was worth it.

Finally, I have to thank each and every one of you guys. From the readers that were with us day one on the blogger page to the people that just found the site yesterday…and all those in-between. Not a single bit of this story would have happened without your support. I wouldn’t have had the determination to continue on with my work. I would have never made the jump from blogger to GoNintendo. I would have never sold my anime collection if you guys weren’t worth it. Every sacrifice and bad moment on the site is worth it 10 fold because of you guys. Your support, as well as your caring nature is a testament to how many great people there are in this world. I seriously am tearing up as I’m typing this out, which I hope shows you just how much you all mean to me. That, and how much of a wuss I am!

I’ve been dedicated to the site and all of you guys from day one, and my dedication will never waver. I will always be here, doing what I do, and I’m damn proud to have you along for the ride. Having this community at my back lets me know that things will only get better every year. That’s an amazing feeling to have, especially when I think every day about how things couldn’t possibly be any better.