Then, I got to work. I started modifying the template with the name of one of my unused domains and started putting it up, page by page. I didn’t want to even allow myself the lazy bliss that is a “coming soon” page.

It was all about sequencing. Everywhere I went online, I steered away from the nitty-gritty details. I didn’t want to get hung up price-comparing for hours online or reading an ebook about webhosting. I started from the most physical ground up: building a website that sold a service, forgetting the rest.

I took index.html from the template I had bought for $16, and in an hour’s time I had something that resembled my own work. Fancy graphics by someone else, but my own text without broken links. For me, this is always an insurmountable task of bootstrapping a website: writing pages of copy for an idea that isn’t totally solid in my brain yet.

I flexed my fingers and banged out marketing material on my keyboard, briefly proofread, and then moved on to the next section. I finished pages.

However, I discovered that writing these pages actually helped me come into a plan that worked for me. Instead of dreaming up marketing and product ideas in my head, I was putting them into action and creating a tangible way to sell them. And so what if it didn’t sell? At this point, I had only invested $20 and a few hours of my time.

Making Choices

Once I had a website that worked for me, I finally allowed myself an hour to do a little online shopping. I found that Namecheap would give me my first month of Reseller hosting for just $1, plus a few useful licenses to sweeten the deal.

I wanted to consolidate, so I tried to transfer my domain from my previous host, which ended up causing a nightmare of back-and-forth with Namecheap customer service. For $1, I wasn’t complaining, but I definitely spent way too much of a 24 hour deadline waiting for a connection in live chat. I killed the time by reading documentation for the CMS I would soon be diving into.

Ultimately, it was looking like a 5 day wait for my domain to transfer, so I quickly (really, really quickly) dreamt up a new domain to purchase. The website would finally be called HostManage.me This represented another $8 or so in investment but I was happy with it. At this point, I was riding on the adrenaline of creation.