Welcome to the new (improved) BaldGuitarDude.com! Glad you joined us. As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t been updating the site much lately have not done a freakin’ thing with this site for months. Well, dear reader, let me be the first to tell you that’s a-gonna change! I’ve done a lot of reflecting on where I failed and discovered there are actually some pretty good life and business lessons to be learned. I’m done being half assed with this site. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I make my living on the internet and somehow couldn’t manage to find time to update this thing regularly. So, for real this time, I’m completely determined to prove to myself that a web-based guy can successfully run a website. Check it out:
BGD’s launch – epic fail
The first thing I did wrong on my initial launch of BGD was trying to pull friends and readers over from my multitude of FB rants on very sensitive topics. This site turned into an us-vs-them political blog, which (while entertaining) didn’t really have a hell of a lot to do with anything other than “what is Joe pissed off about today?”….which is no way to run a blog. The MSM is absolutely saturated with political “pundits” and commentators – I was just polluting the space and not bringing anything unique (at all) to the table. Lesson #1: Define your niche and be an expert in it.
Motivation
In addition to the fact that I was in way over my head with the political stuff, I found myself unmotivated after a few short weeks. Why? Because I was writing about things that pissed me off. While some people are great at rants (Mark Levin comes to mind), I found myself avoiding posting because every time I started writing my blood pressure spiked. Not a good way to motivate myself. Lesson #2: Do something you enjoy.
Investing in BGD
Because of the fact that my good buddy John at 9Seeds set BGD up for me with a $10 domain and cheap-ass hosting package, I had very little reason to be concerned about whether or not I did anything with it. I didn’t have any skin in the game – and I just let the site languish. How do I fix that, you ask? Simple.
I pumped enough money into the project that I now care about it. So…. I spent a couple hundred bucks working with Dave over at Twisted Illustration. He’s a great guy, very smart, very professional, and he designed that awesome cartoon for me that you see above! I’ve also spent a few hours learning (very basic) WP stuff myself instead of pulling a favor from a friend. So now I have the $ and time invested in BGD to actually give a shit. Lesson #3: If you aren’t invested in success, you won’t succeed.
The Future
This takes us to today. I have a rad new site logo, I’ve tweaked the site a bit, and I’m pumped up and motivated for this thing to succeed. How will it succeed? I have no idea. What is my goal for the site? I’m unsure of that, too. Where will it be in a year? No clue. Lesson #4 is “write your plan down on paper,” which admittedly I haven’t done yet. 
So for now I’m going to use BGD for my industry rants and musical learnings. Not going to ditch the old political posts, but those certainly won’t be an emphasis any longer. I may do the odd guitar lesson now and again and I’ll certainly continue recording tunes and posting them here.
So help me get BGD re-started right – leave a comment below with a song request. I’ll record it solo acoustic and post it here for my own embarrassment. I can’t wait to see your ideas!!!