I started five sites at once and killed all of them

I started five sites at once and killed all of them

Month 1: I was so scared of picking the wrong niche that I hedged. Air purifiers, dog crates, standing desks, espresso machines, hiking poles. One domain each, ten articles each, $60 a month in writers spread thin.

Month 6: every site had 40k indexed words and zero of them had topical depth. Google saw five mediocre 'about us' sites. Traffic across all five combined: 900 visits. Revenue: $11.40.

The turn came when I read my own analytics honestly. The dog crate site had three articles ranking page 2. The other four had nothing. So I did the painful thing — let four domains expire, refunded nothing, ate the $400.

I poured everything into the dog site. Built out 'best crate for [breed]' as a real cluster, 70 articles in nine months. By month 18 it did $2,300/mo and I sold it for $61k.

The takeaway: spreading bets feels safe but it's the opposite. One niche with depth beats five with breadth every time. Pick one, go embarrassingly deep, and don't let fear of being wrong stop you from being thorough.