I am currently working vigorously on the development of a variety of my domain names, and a few business models. I was considering the growth, and the futures of these websites, and it dawned on me that in two months I am leaving the country. I will be away from home for 4 months, and although I will have my laptop I am unsure if/how much access I will have to the Internet.

Now many of my websites are run manually, not because I am too lazy to automate them, but rather because some features can NOT be automated. One of my websites is a business through which I offer a service. The service is of high quality because it is manual, and because time is invested in the product which the customer receives. Another requires weekly if not daily updating with new content. On top of this there is the fact that bugs are inevitable. If a bug appears what will my visitors do..?

Now I am going around the world. I intend to be extremely busy: sight seeing; thrill seeking; travelling; drinking; If I do get any spare time: in evenings; on flights; or on the train; then I will most likely be sleeping. My time will be extremely limited, and to be honest given the cost of such a trip, I want to enjoy every minute of it doing something ‘different’.

My thinking is as follows: if my websites are popular and busy by the time I leave, then clearly it would be worthwhile paying someone to maintain them for me.
If they are not, do I simply leave them, let them rot, and then work on them again when I return, or do I again pay someone to maintain them.

I am venturing into marketing, and advertising websites. I have always felt that I have a real knack for website development. I thus have no interest in spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars advertising my websites, just to leave them for four months.
This I feel is an interesting problem, and one which I am sure more than likely affects many of us. If you run a multi billion dollar corporation, it is easy, and financially viable to employ someone to do your job in such a situation. Sadly however I do not.. yet.

I was thinking that you could base a business model in itself around offering support services to businesses whilst staff are on hiatus and/or holiday. Im sure such businesses do exist, and are successful BUT If your business is web based (as mine is), and is such that any individual can easily and effectively take over, then in my opinion you do not have a great business! Businesses need to be unique and of real quality/complexity to be successful.

At this point you may be thinking that if I have so much faith in my business, then I should be prepared to go against the odds to manage it myself at all times. True, but I also have faith in my character, and I feel weighing up my position that thinking about this NOW rather than later will turn out to be an extremely wise and worthwhile decision, which could be make or break for my business.

N.B No need to worry: I have every intention of maintaining this blog with a travel log, and I will continue to check my email as often as is possible. My point is simply that my Internet access will be significantly less than normal