A Chat with David Lithman

David Lithman is a part time internet entrepreneur located in Florida, USA. He has a full daytime job in the golf industry and as a hobby, he runs websites that he one day hopes will earn enough money to allow him to quit his day job. Below is our interview with him.

You seem to know your way around web development pretty well. When did you get started, what was your first site, and have you kept it?

I officially started web development around October 2005. I had dabbed in making FrontPage sites throughout middle and high school, but never took it serious. October 2005 was my first year on the job after college, and I would finish my work too fast. It left me a lot of time to browse online. That’s when I stumbled across blogs. I love sports and wanted to start one of my own. The first site I started was known as Sports Litter. The site is still live, but I haven’t posted on it in ages.

Not only web development – you seem to know your way around the blogosphere as well. You have a blogroll link from blogging evil genius John Chow himself, now how did that happen?

I knew John Chow before he became so evil. It was easy to get a link exchange back then when his blog was small. He told me he’d give me a link exchange as long as I didn’t put any ads on my blog (because he didn’t have any ads on his). My how things have changed…

How much time do you spend on web projects per week?

I would say around 10-15 hours per week. I usually spend 1-2 hours Mondays - Fridays in the mornings before I leave for work. Then when I wrap up my projects at work, I’ll mess around with my sites throughout the day. I rarely ever work on my websites at night time or on weekends.

Could you tell us about some of your greatest successes and some of the major problems you’ve faced online?

Some of my greatest successes have come from selling websites. I have a knack for finding the undervalued sites and ‘flipping’ them for profit several months later. I once purchased a site for $10 on Namepros, only to sell it the next day on Digitalpoint for $100. Another example, I bought a domain for $7 and was contacted by someone the next day looking to buy it from me for $300. And I didn’t even list it for sale! There are several other examples on a larger scale that I tend to keep private.

As for problems I’ve faced … I sold a forum once without telling the members, and once they found out from an outside source they all rioted. It was funny, yet scary at the same time. They were cursing me and saying things I can’t repeat here. It’s hard to keep people happy when you have no real life interaction with them. Other than that I can’t say I’ve faced any real problems online.

Making money online is today more popular than ever! What are your thoughts on this?

More competition is not always a bad thing. The more avenues for advertising we can provide, the more money the advertisers will ultimately throw at the publishers. I have only been making money online for 1.5 years, so I can’t really say for how the ‘making money online’ industry has changed or grown over the years. But I like the way it’s headed.

My only concern with making money online is that you have little to no control over your income. You can get sandboxed, banned, smart-priced or shutdown by major advertisers or search engines without warning. I don’t like not having control over what I’m working on.

How do you see your internet presence developing in the future?

I’d like to eventually turn my venture into a full-time gig. It may take a couple more years for me to achieve this because currently I just don’t have the hours to put into it that so many others do. I’d like to own an official branded company with a network of web sites that provide me with enough money/freedom to do what I want, when I want, and where I want.

Thanks a lot for your time, we wish you all the success in the future!