Name of your website?Monkey Wisdom Meditation Academy
Your name?
Tom Von Deck
Your Location (city, etc)
Prescott
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Everyone can meditate. Discover your most compatible meditation technique or enhance and deepen your current one. Guru Free. All income levels welcome.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I have skills that need to be used.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first website was a collection of quotes which point to the oneness of the experience of God in all traditions. It's still up at http://www.angelfire.com/extreme/empoweringpeople
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I come from the monkey clan. I added the word "Meditation" to make the title more descriptive of what I do. It was once called Monkey Jedi Academy, but too many people did not connect with that. Monkey Wisdom is more descriptive of my monkey nature which sometimes gets me in trouble.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
The training is personalized. My background is going to the root of it all. Therefore, I can teach a variety of personalized techniques, for any spiritual background, almost like it's all just one technique repeating itself in various forms. Everyone resonates with different things, people and activities. Teachings need to be versatile so that there's something for everyone. That same principle applies to income levels, too. If I offer this for free, then people will feel funny asking me for the service and I may not have time to offer it. If I charge exorbitant fees, then low income people cannot afford it. Sliding scale is the best approach so that the widest variety of people can benefit from it.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
My goal is to do what God asks. If God says "Write a book", I'll write a book. I wouldn't mind making a living at some point either. Maybe God has that in mind, too.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
I've been working on two projects. The other is a publicatin on compassion. The inclusive aspect of it (i.e. people of all walks of life are welcome to write) can lower the marketability of the publication. I will not water anyone down just so that someone else will feel comfortable participating or advertising. If censorship is the norm, then maybe it's not worth doing. The Monkey Wisdom Academy is new. Therefore, that's not so hot yet, either.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
N/A
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
There's only so much time to spend with people. It's not an ebay product.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
I got ripped off three times by different entities.
What has been your biggest challenge?
It's not easy being a Monkey Wizard. You become very hard to pigeon-hole. If someone has only 4 or 5 pigeonholes to fit people in, then I easily get thrown into the lunatic hole. People who know me well never place me in that hole. They always feel lifted up and comfortable like a breath of fresh air.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
It's too new to tell.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It hasn't.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
A couple weeks. It will stay up.
What the hell's a monkey wizard?
That's too much to think about. Next question.
What is your website address?
Monkey Wisdom Meditation Academy
