Hé Guy’s,
Thank you so much for visiting VR Bites. The website grew far above my expectations. I’m so thankful for the all the visitors. I know I didn’t post that much lately. I’m rethinking my strategy a little bit. Let me explain:
I started building VR Bites because no one cared about VR. Most people hated the DK1 and didn’t believe in it. I tried to convince my clients this was the future but they laughed at me. I wanted to do something with this amazing new technology. So I created a plan for all the things needed to build my own website. I knew the audience doesn’t want to read big and long stories, at least I don’t want that if I´m on the internet. A guide is okay, but deep interviews? The thing that is popular now, are Youbies! They make great videos and tell in 5 to 10 minutes what a game is about and how they feel about it. It’s countless! So my plan was to start this website with small articles, guides and mostly YouTube-videos.
A great website comes with a great name. I use synonyms in ‘word webs’ a lot (I don’t know if they called the same in English). I started with VR snacks, but it just didn’t fit. With snacks, Bites also popped up and I immediately fell in love. VR Bites sounded great. It’s like a small bite of the news. I didn’t want to focus on long stories, but I could do small bites about them and then forward my article if the reader wanted more information. Together with some amazing Youbies who are interessed in VR this looked like a fun way to share my love for VR.
So I start building this website and it took a long time and spent a lot of money and effort in it. After I finished building it, I started posting games that were shared by developers on the website from Oculus. I searched for YouTube-video’s back then only Nathie did that (if I remember right he did this even with friends on the DK1). So I started sharing video’s and I tried making video’s myself, although I didn’t have much time for it or understand the basics of editing. I posted all my live streams from Twitch and really didn’t understand why people didn’t watch them. I realized I had to focus more on sharing videos from other guys who had time making these beautiful videos.
Also all the editing and writing was hard to do own my own. Time was killing me. All the programming on the background, understanding PHP, finding the best way to organize my posts, understand English (it is hard if you don’t have any experience), it tokes a lot of my time. Meanwhile the website got hacked a few times and I lost a lot of posts. I’m no quitter so I pushed myself to the limits: learning to code, learning English and keep posting more and more information.
I realized couldn’t do it alone, so posted a few request and got a little response. Even from developers who were happy to share games. Even though I wanted to try all the games myself I knew I could only grow if I shared the games with others who were interested in writing for VR Bites. I gave away a lot of keys and got no response in return. It was painful experience, but I knew I had to continue and didn’t give up on VR Bites. More and more websites popped up, way better than my websites. It was hard to see those people had teams and worked together. I wanted that, but I was a scam-magnet.
I started working day and night to make this thing happen and it paid out. The website grew and grew. And then it blacked out! My hosting company couldn´t handle the visitors. I payed them more and more every month, but now I reached the limits of their servers. The most hurting part, my host didn´t mention I had too many visitors, they showed a page saying I didn´t pay my bills! This was nonsense! I paid the guys a huge amount of money. It was time for a dedicated server and a new host. Another challenge and time consuming job. I requested people to help, but there was no response so I had to do it own my own again.
I didn’t know much about Unix so I started reading and reading until I knew all the basics. I was confident enough to bring my site over to the new server. Trust me it’s hard work to transfer all databases, all the images and links and even mail. I did the job and I’m very proud I did this all by myself!
At this point I learned the basics of English writing, how setup a blog, edit PHP for WordPress, make and edit themes on WordPress, I learned the basics of Unix, learned how build my own webserver (this isn’t as easy as it looks thrust me), I learned how to websites from one server to another. All those things were way above my current knowledge.
So new server and a new website without losing my current posts. I continued sharing videos from all the great YouTubers that popped up. I saw them grow and it was weird to see people reacting on them and telling them they discovered their channel true VR Bites. Everyone grew and my website start hitting 50thousand visitors!
I worked hard and kept posting and now VR Bites reached an average of 75 thousand visitors. This is a lot if you realize virtual reality is just a small group of enthusiasts. I´m happy to reach this point! Understand I did all of this on my own and I spent a lot of time in this.
Now I came a new point. The guys, from which I shared their videos from the early days, have decided to make their own website and it feels like I’m being put out of the game. After all the effort I put into this website I don´t want that to happen. So I have to think of a new strategy. The costs of a dedicated server are high and it doesn´t pay out that well. I have to find a new way to compensate and keep VR Bites alive.
I think the only way is to make YouTube videos for myself. So again another challenge! Learn the basics of editing and make great video´s. I experienced a lot with Premiere, Camtasia, Sony Vegas, this last two weeks and I´ve put a lot of effort in making videos. I´m still searching what personality I want to show and how I want my videos to look like. I practiced a lot and I’m learning the fundamentals. Give me some time, I know I can do it!
In this new strategy I´m still looking for people who want to join VR Bites. I need a solid team I can trust. A team that is interested in posting videos, small articles and most important, have fun playing games in VR.
Please give me some time to rethink, learn and reboot! And if you want to join me in this amazing adventure, please sent me a message.
Thanks for reading my posts and visiting VR Bites! You are great and no matter what happens I’m thankful for all the experiences I acquired thanks to my visitors!
Greetz,
Robbert
A.k.a. ClassicGamerNL
Never feel inferior about yourself!
No matter how many times you fail, no matter how many mistakes you make. If you can put yourself together every time, you haven´t failed you´ve gained experience and leveled up! Never hide from yourself, just be proud of your unique characteristics. Don’t look at the person you want to be, search for that person inside that makes you happy! That is the key to happiness and the highest success you will find in your life. And if you have find your happiness, don´t forget to share your smile so others can pass it on.
