Project 24 Update: What 6 Months Really Looks Like

Six months in. Sixty-two blog posts written. Seventeen YouTube videos recorded. Three other websites and three other YouTube channels running in parallel. Total earnings to date: $2.12. That is the real six-month update for Project 24, and I am telling you upfront so you know this is not a highlight-reel post.

Most Project 24 updates you will find online skip the part where the analytics are basically just the creator refreshing the page every 15 minutes because they are too excited not to. They skip the part where two lost weekends to desk installation threw the whole content schedule behind. They skip the $2.12 check. This post does not skip any of that. If you are six months into your own blog or thinking about starting Project 24, everything below is the honest version of what this phase actually looks like.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The real traffic numbers at six months from Project 24 (September 2018 to February 2019)
Why the first two months of analytics data are mostly noise from the creator themselves
What the Blog to Social WordPress plugin did to traffic and why the spike did not hold
How the Warrior Challenge (60,000 words in February) works and a strategy for hitting it
The multi-site sequencing rule that keeps shiny-object syndrome from derailing everything
How Reference USA, a free library database, finds local businesses that need websites
How to match your situation to the right online income model at finder.platformproof.com

Six Months In: The Real Numbers

Project 24 started on September 7, 2018. This update was recorded on February 21, 2019, which puts the timeline at just over six months. Here is where things stood at that point.

Primary site: 62 blog posts, 17 to 18 YouTube videos
Three additional websites running alongside the primary site
Three additional YouTube channels
January page views: 417
Total earnings: $2.12

Those numbers look modest, and they are, but the context matters. The first two to two-and-a-half months of data are almost entirely self-inflicted traffic. When you launch something new and you are excited about it, you check it constantly. You make a change and you open the site. You show a friend and you reload. You flip through settings and reload again. That shows up in Google Analytics as page views, but it is not real audience traffic. Strip that out and the true organic growth curve starts somewhere around mid-November 2018.

By December and into January, the curve was flat. This is exactly what the Project 24 mentors Jim and Ricky from Income School had described in their curriculum. They call it the ghost town phase, and it is real and it lasts longer than most new creators expect.

The Ghost Town Phase: What Jim and Ricky Actually Mean

If you go through the Project 24 curriculum, Jim and Ricky are explicit about this: after the initial launch buzz, there will be a stretch where traffic does not show up and it feels like nobody is reading anything. They call it a ghost town. Most people who quit during this phase do so because they underestimated how long it would actually last.

Mid-November through December and into January was exactly that window for this project. Hundreds of hours of writing had gone into the blog by that point. The posts were live, the YouTube videos were recorded, and the analytics were barely moving. For anyone who has been in that spot, you know how frustrating it is to look at a flat line and remind yourself that this is part of the process, not a sign that the process is broken.

The thing that kept things moving during this phase was the same thing that makes Project 24 work for people who stick it out: the mentors told you it would look like this ahead of time. When the result matches the prediction, even if the result is discouraging, it confirms the framework is tracking correctly. The ghost town was supposed to happen. Knowing that in advance takes some of the sting out of it, even if not all of it.

The Blog to Social Experiment: Up to 60 Page Views in One Day

At the end of January, a WordPress plugin called Blog to Social changed the traffic chart temporarily. Blog to Social lets you push blog posts out to multiple social media platforms the moment you hit publish. For this project, posts were going out to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest automatically on the same day they went live.

The first 30 days of Blog to Social are free, and during that trial you get access to the premium version which allows scheduling posts in advance. Older posts were loaded into a schedule to go out multiple times per week. One post was set to publish every day at 6:00 a.m. across all five platforms, scheduled to repeat for 52 weeks. The logic was straightforward: not everyone sees every post when you first share it. Social media works more like a television channel than a bulletin board. ESPN is always running. You catch what you catch when you tune in. Posting the same content on a recurring schedule means it reaches different people at different times rather than only the people who happened to be online the moment you originally shared it.

The result was a single-day spike to 60 page views, which at the time was a significant jump from the baseline. But the data also showed that the spikes trended downward over the following weeks, which means fewer and fewer people from those social feeds were clicking through. Social media traffic is generally less durable than organic search traffic, and that pattern was showing up clearly in the numbers. The Blog to Social experiment was worth running, but it was not a substitute for building search rankings over time.

What Is Actually Working: Organic Search and Bing

While the social traffic was declining, something more durable was beginning to show up in the analytics: organic search traffic. Bing in particular was starting to send visitors. People were typing questions into a search engine and landing on the blog posts, which is exactly the kind of traffic that Project 24 is designed to build over time.

Organic search traffic compounds. A social post gets seen by whoever is online in that moment and then largely disappears. A well-written blog post that ranks in search results keeps bringing people in months and years later without any additional work. At six months, the organic numbers were still small, but the trend was moving in the right direction, and the traffic composition was shifting toward the kind that builds a sustainable readership. Bing often picks up new sites faster than Google does, so seeing Bing referrals early in the timeline is a signal that the content is being indexed and considered relevant. Google typically follows later.

The Warrior Challenge: 60,000 Words in February

Project 24 runs a monthly content challenge in February called the Warrior Challenge. The goal is to produce 60,000 words of content in a single month. Complete it and you earn a badge that is visible to other Project 24 members in the community forums.

At the time of this update, the word count for February was sitting at 47,000 with seven or eight days remaining in the month. To finish, the math required approximately 1,500 words per day. The important detail is that YouTube video scripts count toward the total. A single YouTube video script typically runs around 1,500 words, which means recording one or two videos per day makes the 60,000-word target reachable without burning yourself out on written blog posts alone.

The strategy for the final stretch: record one or two YouTube videos each day for the primary site, bank them for future publishing, and fill any remaining gap with written posts. That combination of video and written output covers the daily target while also building inventory on both the blog and the YouTube channel at the same time. The Warrior Challenge is as much a discipline exercise as it is a content production goal. Most people who attempt it and fall short still end up with more content than they would have produced without the target.

The Multi-Site Strategy: A System for Avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome

Running four websites and four YouTube channels at the same time sounds like exactly the kind of thing that would dilute focus and kill momentum. The way this project handles it is with a strict sequencing rule that prevents any one site from getting real attention before it has earned it.

The sequence works like this. The primary site gets full attention until it hits 100 blog posts and 30 YouTube videos. Once those numbers are reached, focus shifts to the second site with the same target: 100 posts and 30 videos. The third and fourth sites have a lower threshold of 30 posts and 10 videos each, because they are in different niches that may not require the same volume to gain traction.

This approach solves a specific problem that ends a lot of blogging projects: shiny object syndrome. When one site feels stuck, the temptation is to launch a new one. An AWS blog was almost started around this time, but the decision was to wait until the primary site hit its milestone first. The threshold rule removes the emotional component from the decision. You do not get to start something new until the current thing hits a preset number. That structure creates consistency in a way that willpower alone rarely does, especially during the slow phases when a new project feels like a fresh start and the current one feels like a grind.

Rebuilt Web Services: The Parallel Business Running Alongside Project 24

Project 24 is not the only income-building effort running here. Rebuilt Web Services is a separate business built with a partner named Rodney. The business offers web design, web hosting, social media management, logo creation, and consulting for small and medium-sized businesses in the local area.

Running a service business in parallel with a content business is a deliberate choice. The content business (Project 24 blogging and YouTube) takes time to produce income because it depends on building an audience first. The service business produces income faster because you are selling directly to clients who need something done right now. The two models work together: the service business funds the patience required to let the content business grow through the ghost town phase without panic. If you need income before your blog is earning, a local service business built around skills you already have is a practical parallel track to run while the content compounds.

Reference USA: The Free Client Database Most People Have Never Heard Of

Finding local businesses to pitch web design services to sounds like it would require buying expensive lead lists or doing hours of manual Google searches. Reference USA is the alternative that most people do not know about.

Reference USA is a database that contains records for nearly every business in the United States. You can search by business name, location, industry, executive contacts, and whether the business has a website listed. It is completely free and available through most public libraries. All you need is a library card.

The way Rebuilt Web Services uses it: search for local businesses in the target area that have no website listed in the database, then use the owner and executive contact information to reach out. You already know before you make the first call that they do not have a website. That removes the guesswork from prospecting and turns cold outreach into a targeted search. You are not calling everyone on a list hoping someone needs what you offer. You are calling businesses where you already know the answer to the most important qualifying question.

The Cold Call and Postcard System

Two tactics drive the client outreach for Rebuilt Web Services: cold calls during lunch and direct mail postcards to businesses without websites.

The cold call routine happens every lunch break. Sitting in the car during the workday, 20 calls go out to businesses identified through the Reference USA database. The conversion rate on cold calls is low by definition, and that is expected. The goal of each call is not necessarily to close a client immediately but to open a conversation and establish that Rebuilt Web Services exists. One call made on a Monday that week resulted in a callback request for Wednesday. The Wednesday follow-up went to voicemail, but the contact has been initiated and the next touchpoint has a reason to happen.

The postcards complement the calls rather than replace them. About 500 postcards were being mailed out to businesses from the Reference USA list that had no website. The economics are favorable even at a very low response rate. If a single client responds to the postcard campaign and signs on for web design or hosting services, the mailing pays for itself with a margin left over. And the cards create a secondary benefit: when you follow up by phone after sending a postcard, the call is no longer fully cold. You can open with “Did you receive the postcard I sent?” which gives you a natural reason for calling and makes the conversation less jarring for the person on the other end. It is a small shift in framing, but it changes the dynamic from interruption to follow-up.

The sales techniques from The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy were also being incorporated into both the calls and the blog post writing to see whether applying buyer psychology frameworks to content would improve affiliate click-through rates. The idea is that the same principles that make a sales call more effective, meeting the buyer where their concerns already are, can also make a blog post more persuasive by addressing the reader’s actual hesitations rather than just presenting information.

Trying to figure out which online business model fits your situation?

Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get a personalized recommendation based on your schedule, existing skills, and income goals.

Honest Drawbacks: What Six Months of Project 24 Actually Costs You

The Project 24 model works over time, but it requires a specific kind of patience that most people underestimate before they start. Here is what that patience looks like in real terms.

The income timeline is long. At $2.12 after six months and 62 blog posts, the per-post earnings average is about three cents. That math will improve as the site grows, but anyone expecting to replace their income within the first six months should look at the real numbers before committing.
Weekends are your most productive time, and life still takes them. Two consecutive weekends were lost to desk assembly and monitor mounting. Furniture installation sounds trivial, but when your content schedule depends on weekend output, even minor logistics can throw an entire week off track.
Shiny object syndrome is a persistent threat. The pull toward launching a new project when the current one is in its slow phase is strong and it feels rational in the moment. Having a system that defines when you are allowed to shift attention is the practical defense, but the temptation does not go away just because you have a rule against acting on it.
Pizza day is harder to reach than it sounds. Jim and Ricky use pizza day, the first time you earn $5 from your blog, as an early milestone. The target was to hit it by the end of February. It was not going to happen. Missing a milestone you set publicly is uncomfortable, and it is worth knowing that going in rather than being surprised by it.
Consistency targets will be missed. The goal was three YouTube vlogs per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). The desk situation made that impossible this particular week. The gap between what you plan and what you ship is a regular feature of this phase, not an occasional exception.

The $2.12 Check: Why Publishing Honest Earnings Numbers Matters

The $2.12 total earnings figure at six months is worth spending a moment on because it is the kind of number that people building online businesses rarely publish. Most income reports surface after the curve has already turned upward. The flat and discouraging parts tend not to get documented.

The $2.12 came from a combination of ad revenue and affiliate link clicks. The affiliate link in the video description is for Project 24 itself. If someone clicks and joins the membership, a commission is earned. Display ads are also running on the site and generating small amounts of revenue based on page views. At 417 page views in January and a few dollars per thousand views for ad revenue, the math does not produce significant income in month six. That is not a surprise; it is the expected result at this stage of the model.

Here is the important context: $2.12 is not a failure. It is proof that the monetization mechanisms work. The ads are running. The affiliate links are live. The infrastructure is functioning. The only variable that changes the outcome from here is time and volume. More posts plus more page views equals more revenue. The compounding nature of content-based income means that month 12 will not look like month 6, and month 24 will not look like month 12. The $2.12 is the confirmed starting point, not the destination.

Pizza day, the Project 24 milestone for earning your first $5 online through the blog, was not reached by the end of February. But the goal is visible, the mechanisms to reach it are in place, and every additional post added to the site increases the probability that one of them ranks well, brings in consistent readers, and converts to ad revenue or an affiliate sale. The path from $2.12 to pizza day is the same path that was already producing the $2.12: more content, more time, more patience.

Find Your X

Project 24 is one model. The postcard-and-cold-call local web design business is another. Running both in parallel is a third approach that works for some people and burns out others. The right starting point depends on your cash flow situation, your schedule, your existing skills, and how much patience you have for the income timeline of content creation versus the faster but more labor-intensive returns of client work.

If you are trying to figure out which online business model actually fits your life right now, finder.platformproof.com walks you through a short quiz that matches your situation to a specific starting point. No guessing and no generic advice about picking a niche.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to start making money with Project 24?

Based on this update: at six months with 62 posts, total earnings were $2.12. Income School’s own published data suggests most sites start generating meaningful income somewhere between 12 and 24 months after launch. The timeline depends on niche competition, content quality, and how consistently you publish. Do not expect to replace your current income within the first year, and budget your expectations accordingly before you start.

What is “pizza day” in Project 24?

Pizza day is the term Jim and Ricky from Income School use for the day you first earn $5 from your blog online. It is a symbolic milestone that proves the monetization mechanisms are working. Once you hit pizza day, you know the model is producing real income, even if the amount is small. From there the goal becomes scaling content to grow the revenue over time.

Does Blog to Social actually work for building traffic?

It produced a temporary spike here, up to 60 page views in a single day, which was a significant jump from baseline. But the spikes declined over the following weeks, and social media traffic is generally less durable than organic search traffic. Blog to Social may be worth testing during the ghost town phase when organic search has not yet kicked in, but it should not be treated as a substitute for building search rankings. Social traffic borrowed; search traffic earned.

What is the Warrior Challenge in Project 24?

The Warrior Challenge is a monthly content challenge run by Income School in February. The target is 60,000 words of content in the month. YouTube video scripts count toward the total, which makes it achievable for creators who also publish video content. Completing the challenge earns a badge visible to other Project 24 community members. Even if you fall short, the challenge tends to produce significantly more content than you would have created without the target in front of you.

What is Reference USA and how do you access it for free?

Reference USA is a business database available free of charge through most U.S. public libraries. You can search for businesses by name, location, industry, executive contacts, and whether they have a website listed. All you need is a free library card to access it. For local service businesses like web design agencies that want to find businesses without websites, it is one of the most practical prospecting tools available at no cost.

How many posts do you need before traffic starts growing from Project 24?

Project 24 recommends treating the first 100 posts as the foundation phase where traffic is slow and largely unpredictable. At 62 posts and six months in, organic search from Bing was beginning to appear but the numbers were still modest. The compounding effects of content become more visible after 12 to 18 months when older posts have had time to build domain authority and rank consistently. Publishing quality consistently through the ghost town phase is the main thing that separates sites that eventually take off from ones that get abandoned.

How do you run multiple sites without losing focus on any of them?

The approach here is strict sequential development with preset content thresholds. Site one gets full attention until it reaches 100 posts and 30 YouTube videos. Only then does meaningful work shift to site two. Sites three and four have lower thresholds of 30 posts and 10 videos each because they are in different niches that may not need the same volume. The threshold rule removes the emotional decision-making from the equation. You know in advance exactly when you are allowed to shift attention to the next project, which prevents the impulse switch that kills most multi-site efforts.

Is running a local web design business alongside Project 24 worth it?

It depends on your cash flow situation. A local web design and hosting business generates income faster than a content site because you are selling directly to clients rather than building an audience first. If you need income while the blog is in its ghost town phase, a service business is a practical parallel track. The trade-off is that client work takes time that could otherwise go toward writing posts, so you need to be realistic about your available hours before taking on both. The combination works best when the service business is simple enough to run in gaps rather than requiring blocks of creative focus.

Sources

Income School / Project 24: incomeschool.com
Blog to Social WordPress plugin: Blog to Social on WordPress.org
Reference USA business database: available free at U.S. public libraries with a library card
The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy