Welcome to kuaby’s first ever monthly report!

Moving forward, I will publish an update like this before the 15th of every month. This is a commitment I am making to you, and my readers.

In these monthly reports, expect to see a detailed breakdown of kuaby’s income and expenses, followed by numbers related to traffic and community size. You will also get a clear picture of what I did, the lessons I learned, as well as my plan for the upcoming month.

If you have any questions or comments related to my progress, I would love to answer them in the comment section below.

Why Publish a Monthly Report?

Unlike many blogs sharing their income reports, kuaby is a loss-making site. If that is the case, why am I sharing it with everyone? The detailed numbers are coming right up but please bear with me as I explain why I am doing this.

Showing Your Work Attracts Like-Minded People

I had multiple nudges in the past few months to start documenting what I am doing and learning to grow kuaby.

First, I came across Austin Kleon in Chase Jarvis’ 30 Days of Genius video series. Austin is the author of a book called Show Your Work!, and in the interview embedded below, he talks about why people should document and share their work.

He also brings up the idea of scenius, which is a form of collective genius that a combination of environment and a group of individuals generates. The notion stuck with me because very often, my best ideas and work do not come from epiphanies. Instead, they originate from the conversations I had with others and what others are doing.

After watching the interview, I bought Austin’s book and finished it in a week.

In the earlier parts of the book, he lays out how the scenius model works and how to find a scenius for yourself. According to him, you do not need to be talented or smart to become a valuable part of a scenius. It is more about the ideas you share, the connections you make, and the conversations you start. Also, when you share what you love, the people who love the same things will find you.

That is it! I want to connect with like-minded individuals (like you, perhaps?) who can grow together with me, and one of the ways to initiate that is by sharing the work I put into kuaby with everyone!

The Big Push from Gary Vaynerchuk

The biggest nudge that got me to start writing this update is from Gary Vaynerchuk’s Document, Don’t Create video above. In the 7-minute video, one message stood out to me from the rest:

If I can put out a body of work 40 years from now, that showed the process of a young man that put in the work, had the vision, did it the right way, tried to help people along the way, because he was trying to build the biggest building in town by building it, not my tearing everybody else’s buildings down, and then I actually accomplished it, well… that becomes a real American dream story.

Aside from the result, people are also interested in the “behind-the-scenes”, the story, and the process someone takes to achieve it.

By documenting my progress with kuaby and my work here, I believe it will be interesting for myself and others to look back into these reports a few months down the road.

Accountability

About two months ago, I reached out to Lu Wee, a talented friend of mine who runs a website called The Entrepreneur Campfire. I wanted to see if we can become each other’s accountability partner.

The result of us coming together has been amazing. I started putting in more work for kuaby. From publishing less than one new piece of content each month, I am now close to posting a new piece of content every week. In other words, my productivity has gone up by four times since we started the partnership.

It is evident. I work better when accountability is present. With a monthly report like this where I will be publicly listing down my plans and the actions I took, I will be more compelled to keep putting in the work, much better work.

Profit and Loss Statement

In August 2016, kuaby made a loss of $28.34.

Revenue

kuaby made a total of $4.90 last month.

It is not a lot, but the number is on an upward trend as you can see in the coming months.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Google AdSense: $4.15
• Amazon Associates: $0.75

TOTAL REVENUE: $4.90

Expenses

kuaby’s expenses stood at $33.24 last month.

I am keeping my costs low at this point. This means holding back on a lot of the new software and other bright shiny tools that come my way.

Here’s the breakdown:

• DigitalOcean: $12.00
• Adobe Creative Cloud subscription: $9.99
• Grammarly: $6.25
• Google Apps: $5.00

TOTAL EXPENSES: $33.24

Traffic Update

In August 2016, kuaby had 3,200 unique visitors.

As you can see in the screenshot taken from Google Analytics below, traffic is going on an upward trend, thanks to the new content that I have been publishing to the site.

Here are kuaby’s top sources of traffic:

The website in the fifth spot has a link to an old site of mine, wayneliew.com. A few months ago, I redirected all the pages on wayneliew.com to my author page on kuaby, and that is how the website ended up as one of the top traffic referral in August.

The following are the most visited content in August:

Here are the links to the top 5 if you are interested in checking them out:

• KL Sentral
• KLCC – Bukit Bintang Pedestrian Walkway
• KLCC Park
• Sungai Chiling Fish Sanctuary
• Berjaya Times Square Shopping Mall

Revenue per 1,000 Pageviews (RPM)

Revenue per 1,000 Pageviews or RPM is a metric to measure a website’s efficiency in monetizing its page views.

kuaby’s RPM for August 2016 is $1.14.

I do not know what the industry average is for this metric. Please share if you are tracking this metric for your blog, but it is not a metric that I am focusing on right now.

Community Update

This section of the monthly report gives an update on the size of kuaby’s following on social media.

Although kuaby has a small following across different social networks, I will just list those that I actively maintain.

• Instagram: 185
• Twitter: 193
• Facebook: 41

The Actions I Took in August

I published a total of 3 new attraction guides.

I also started posting new updates to kuaby’s profile on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter every day. At the same time, I am engaging those who are following kuaby, as well as people who are planning a trip to Malaysia.

The things I did are nothing fancy. However, it is a huge leap forward for the site because I was only publishing one piece of new content each month, and I completely ignore social media as a source of traffic.

Lessons Learned

This is the section where I share insights that I picked up last month. You can learn from them, or if you have the experience in growing a website, feel free to give me your feedback.

You Do Not Need to Travel A Lot to Maintain a Travel Website

When I started kuaby, I had the belief that I must travel a lot to update the site consistently. It was an excuse I had for a very long time.

As someone who has been living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the past six years, I did not feel like writing about its attractions because they are places that I got used to visiting.

What I did not realize, is the fact that there are travelers around the world who are researching about Kuala Lumpur to plan for their upcoming trip here.

As a local, you know the ins and outs of your city. You can write about offbeat attractions, things to do, and places to eat. On top of that, you can provide the most updated answers to tricky, but frequently asked questions about your city. These are advantages a local has over travel bloggers who only get to stay in your city for a few days or a few weeks.

Don’t ever use “I am not traveling enough” as an excuse for not working on your travel blog or website. Start looking for content ideas around you. What about sharing your favorite spot in the city where you live?

Plans for September

I am excited for September! If you are still reading this, I want you to put me accountable in the next update if I did not carry out any of the following tasks.

Ramp Up Publishing Frequency of New Content

I want to publish at least two new pieces of content each week, and this means you can expect eight new pieces of content to go live on kuaby this month. I am falling behind on this, but I will push myself harder to accomplish this because I believe having more content is key to growing a new website.

Build an Email List

Building an email list is important. Everybody who runs a successful website says that.

It was not my focus because I do not have the content to attract email subscribers. Even if they subscribed, I did not have anything to send them because I was not even publishing new content to the website.

This is changing now that I am posting more frequently. In September, I am going to work on lead magnets and my first email funnel.

I am planning to turn my attraction guides into PDFs that I can use as lead magnets. My guess is that people want these PDFs to save on data or roaming charges when they travel.

I am also coming up with an email funnel with content and offers that will help my subscribers plan for their upcoming trips.

Final Thoughts

There you have it – the first monthly report for kuaby!

It is not one that shows a huge income, but I am excited to put this out in the world. I cannot wait to see what will happen.

Have a question or feedback for me? Leave a comment below. You will get a reply, I promise.

If you want to get an update when I publish the next monthly report, send an email to [email protected] (yes, it is my personal email).

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