T3G staff, how are you doing?

[Tyler]

Hi guys. Been a while since we’ve all talked.

Long story short, I got out of the USMC last July and moved from San Diego back to my hometown on Long Island, NY. The first four months or so I was miserable. The boring 9-5 work life is just not for me. That said, if you didn’t already know, I decided to do what I really want to be doing, and bought a Four Wheel Camper shell to live out of while I travel North and maybe South America for the next 2-3+ years. Gonna make a whole separate thread about all of that.

The camper will be ready February 2020 and then I will DIY build the inside and hit the road by spring 2020 with my wife and two dogs. In the meantime, AND while on the road, my focus is T3G and preparing to build a popular YouTube account documenting my journey.

I just wanted to let you guys kind of know what’s next for me and T3G. T3G wise, hopefully I can spend this time making it better and bringing in more activity.

I also wanted to know if you guys are still doing well as moderators of the site. If you’re not or just need to talk to me in private about anything - shoot me a message.

I also would love to meet up and go camping with you guys once I’m on the road. I truly appreciate the time you put into this website and I’d love to buy you drinks and have @Paige cook for you out on the trail (I don’t cook).

Lastly, I need some advice. The monthly costs of running the forum are kind of high as traffic from Google searches is constantly increasing. Do you think the many vendors on the site would be willing to pay a fee to be here if I reached out to them? If so, how much? And if you can think of anything else the site needs changed please let me know.

@Mr. Nobody
@JerryTaco2.0
@Nick BBP
@Jfrisch01
@Romp-A-Taco
@solscooter

 

[Tacomadad18]

Man I had figured you had a lot going on with the transition! That is super awesome and can not wait to watch the adventure. If you ever make it through St Louis Mo, id meet up with you guys.

Been very easy as a mod on the site, the atmosphere around here is great. I have no complaints. I try to approve only people I can verify for sure, if I cannot I will wait for you or someone else to confirm. if there is anything else I could help with feel free to let me know. I try to push T3G as much as possible to my pages on fb and youtube (shameless plugs lol)

Im not 100% on the vendors paying but I’m sure some will go for it, if they get something out of it (sales percentage from members) it is cheaper to advertise on here vs on their own. Especially for newer companies starting to grow.

Best of luck with the adventures, safe travels! That is going to be something I want to do once we get older.

 

[Mr. Nobody]

Tyler and I have been talking regularly and he already knows how excited I am for him getting the camper and hitting the road. I'm extremely envious of their upcoming adventure and looking forward to meeting up with them on the road.

Life's been busy here for me. We wound up the end of our fundraising efforts for the year in September and we've been playing catch up ever since. We are trying to find time to get the next year's fundraiser organized as it starts in May. Sounds far, but it's right around the corner.

Haven't had a lot of time to devote to much due to focusing on work. I'm in the middle of a promotional process that should be wrapped up around March. Which means I'll be promoted and on probation for 6 months after that.

As far as being a mod, I've got no complaints. I try and stay on top of getting vendors set up, but I need more time to devote towards getting them to stay committed to the site. Many have gone dark and I'm in the process of watching to see who shows up how often and potentially removing some from the site.

As for revenue for the site, I think you shouldn't have to front all of the cost @Tyler . I definitely think we could convince some of the vendors to contribute. It's all in the wording. The real question that we need to know is what it costs to run the site, so we can cover that, and a bit extra for you and @Paige . There's no reason this site couldn't cover basic expenses, just needs to be set up and organized.

 

[solscooter]

Since july. Well i almost died of ketoacidosis. We were trying to sell our house took the dog out to get some chik fil a while the house was showing and was planning to head to a brewery after. Suddenly ran out of all energy and felt really sick. the showing was done and i got back in the house and passed out on the couch. I was stuck on the couch for3 days before my wife convinced me to get to the walk in. I thought it was just the flu. They tested my blood and said i needed to get to a hospital ASAP. So we went to the hospital who hooked me up to fluids and said i was to close to the edge and needed to get into ICU. So i had my first ambulance ride to the ICU. Once in the ICU i had an IV put in each are, was cut off food and had blood taken every hour along with my blood sugars checked with a finger poke. So i spent 3 days including July 4 in ICU. Not cool. Now im on a aggressive insulin plan thats caused me to gain over 30lbs in 2 months.

shorlty after the house was taken off the market. It just was not getting any offers. We had been hoping to move back to Georgia.

Oh all those hospital bills (my wife and dog were also in their respective ERs this year) forced me to get back i to the workforce. It was time for that though.

My wife lost her job, the reason we even moved to Minn in the first place, the same week i started mine. She was out of work for almost 2 months. Finally found something that would work remotely and watch our senior dog although it is only contract work as apposed to full time.

Then last month i lost my buddy of 15 years. kidney disease finally got the best of him. It was tough to watch him slowly wind down and just about give up. We let him leave some his dignity still intact. Hurts like a mother fucker though.

ive barely driven or thought about my truck since the summer.... still have been checking in on the site though. Purchased a cell phone remote start and some meso stage 1 tails on the blackfriday sales. First time ive bought anything for it in a long time. Mobtown might let me do a special pay plan to finally get a front bumper cause i just dont have much funds flowing around anymore. It might take a few OTPHJ to get it done though.

sorry this is all such a downer. been really trying to get back to neutral and taking lots of meds to try and do so.

 

[Mr. Nobody]

Damn @solscooter , that sounds like an incredibly difficult couple of months. Wish there was more I could do to help out, but just know you got a little piece of the internet here where you can get away if you need it.

 

[solscooter]

Damn @solscooter , that sounds like an incredibly difficult couple of months. Wish there was more I could do to help out, but just know you got a little piece of the internet here where you can get away if you need it.

Appreciate it.

 

[Tyler]

Since july. Well i almost died of ketoacidosis. We were trying to sell our house took the dog out to get some chik fil a while the house was showing and was planning to head to a brewery after. Suddenly ran out of all energy and felt really sick. the showing was done and i got back in the house and passed out on the couch. I was stuck on the couch for3 days before my wife convinced me to get to the walk in. I thought it was just the flu. They tested my blood and said i needed to get to a hospital ASAP. So we went to the hospital who hooked me up to fluids and said i was to close to the edge and needed to get into ICU. So i had my first ambulance ride to the ICU. Once in the ICU i had an IV put in each are, was cut off food and had blood taken every hour along with my blood sugars checked with a finger poke. So i spent 3 days including July 4 in ICU. Not cool. Now im on a aggressive insulin plan thats caused me to gain over 30lbs in 2 months.

shorlty after the house was taken off the market. It just was not getting any offers. We had been hoping to move back to Georgia.

Oh all those hospital bills (my wife and dog were also in their respective ERs this year) forced me to get back i to the workforce. It was time for that though.

My wife lost her job, the reason we even moved to Minn in the first place, the same week i started mine. She was out of work for almost 2 months. Finally found something that would work remotely and watch our senior dog although it is only contract work as apposed to full time.

Then last month i lost my buddy of 15 years. kidney disease finally got the best of him. It was tough to watch him slowly wind down and just about give up. We let him leave some his dignity still intact. Hurts like a mother fucker though.

ive barely driven or thought about my truck since the summer.... still have been checking in on the site though. Purchased a cell phone remote start and some meso stage 1 tails on the blackfriday sales. First time ive bought anything for it in a long time. Mobtown might let me do a special pay plan to finally get a front bumper cause i just dont have much funds flowing around anymore. It might take a few OTPHJ to get it done though.

sorry this is all such a downer. been really trying to get back to neutral and taking lots of meds to try and do so.

Well, shit.

When I made this thread to check in with you guys I figured everyone would be busy here and there and while we all have our issues, this last few months for you have clearly been unusually dark. I can imagine how this must be on you and your wife. My father-in-law was also in the hospital for the exact same thing at around the same time as you and it's very scary stuff. I also had two separate dog emergencies recently and holy fuck do they charge you out the ass for those.

I know most people say this and it typically never ends up meaning much, but seriously if there is something I can do to help please let me know. I really appreciate you still checking in on the website through all of that, but on the flip side if it is too much for you to be here, let me know and it would be no problem for you to step away for a while. But like Andy said, hopefully you're able to use this place as a way to take a break from real life for a bit.

 

[solscooter]

I appreciate it. Im good. Dont need a break as a mod. I like reading the comments here. Approve a few people every now and then.

now that the wife and i are both working we are hoping to save some money and do some traveling.

 

[Romp-A-Taco]

Really sorry to hear you had such a though time recently, but glad to hear you are bouncing back and staying strong. Hang in there and keep on trucking!

Since july. Well i almost died of ketoacidosis. We were trying to sell our house took the dog out to get some chik fil a while the house was showing and was planning to head to a brewery after. Suddenly ran out of all energy and felt really sick. the showing was done and i got back in the house and passed out on the couch. I was stuck on the couch for3 days before my wife convinced me to get to the walk in. I thought it was just the flu. They tested my blood and said i needed to get to a hospital ASAP. So we went to the hospital who hooked me up to fluids and said i was to close to the edge and needed to get into ICU. So i had my first ambulance ride to the ICU. Once in the ICU i had an IV put in each are, was cut off food and had blood taken every hour along with my blood sugars checked with a finger poke. So i spent 3 days including July 4 in ICU. Not cool. Now im on a aggressive insulin plan thats caused me to gain over 30lbs in 2 months.

shorlty after the house was taken off the market. It just was not getting any offers. We had been hoping to move back to Georgia.

Oh all those hospital bills (my wife and dog were also in their respective ERs this year) forced me to get back i to the workforce. It was time for that though.

My wife lost her job, the reason we even moved to Minn in the first place, the same week i started mine. She was out of work for almost 2 months. Finally found something that would work remotely and watch our senior dog although it is only contract work as apposed to full time.

Then last month i lost my buddy of 15 years. kidney disease finally got the best of him. It was tough to watch him slowly wind down and just about give up. We let him leave some his dignity still intact. Hurts like a mother fucker though.

ive barely driven or thought about my truck since the summer.... still have been checking in on the site though. Purchased a cell phone remote start and some meso stage 1 tails on the blackfriday sales. First time ive bought anything for it in a long time. Mobtown might let me do a special pay plan to finally get a front bumper cause i just dont have much funds flowing around anymore. It might take a few OTPHJ to get it done though.

sorry this is all such a downer. been really trying to get back to neutral and taking lots of meds to try and do so.

 

[Tyler]

Really sorry to hear you had such a though time recently, but glad to hear you are bouncing back and staying strong. Hang in there and keep on trucking!

And how are you doing James? All good with still being a moderator here?

 

[Romp-A-Taco]

Hey guys,

I’ve had my hands full the last couple months. My wife and I recently gave birth to a baby boy! Such a life changing experience as he is our first. We’ve been a bit sleep deprived and getting adjusted to the new schedule has been hectic, but we are finally starting to get into a bit of flow of things.

I’m an ecommerce manager for multiple bands and this period is my busiest time of the year with finalization of year end Black Friday promotions and planning for next year. (If you guys are into snowboarding or skateboarding, I can share some coupons for the brands I work for!) Brands: Thirtytwo, Etnies, eS, and Emerica.

Up until my son was born I was getting really active in the Tacoma and off road meets in the Inland Empire and OC areas of Cali. Trying to make Connect with people to off road with. Been successful and been going out with some rad groups of peeps. I pass out T3G Stickers to everyone with Tacoma’s even when not at events, if I spot a sick taco in the wild I drop a sticker under their wiper.

With that said, I’ve found myself a little less active on the forum than usual, but I’m planning to get more on it. I’ve been occasionally approving new members and welcoming new members on their build pages when I can. Commenting on the occasional threads. I need to spend some more time getting more conversations on existing threads reactivated. also, my thread page is slightly out dated. Ahhhh.

As for the vendors, I’d bet the traffic coming from T3G is minimal compared to Sources like google and Facebook, but T3G traffic is more valuable and I would bet converts at a much higher rate for the vendors. Some of the highest value we provide the vendors with is that we link to their website, we help boost their SEO and rankings in google. May be hard to justify a monthly fee for them.

I would recommend considering entering the affiliate space within an affiliate program. the way affiliates work is you place tracking code on all the vendor links and the vendors would track each link click and resulting sale on their website and then pay you usually 3-9% of each transaction total. It takes a bit of work to set up, but it could be a real money maker for the site at least to help keep the lights on and it would be low key nonintrusive to the T3G audience.

@Tyler Let me know your thoughts and if you want more info on affiliate marketing.

?? Rock On!

 

[Romp-A-Taco]

And how are you doing James? All good with still being a moderator here?

I enjoy being a mod for sure and plan to be more active now that we are getting settled with our new family member!

 

[Tyler]

Hey guys,

I’ve had my hands full the last couple months. My wife and I recently gave birth to a baby boy! Such a life changing experience as he is our first. We’ve been a bit sleep deprived and getting adjusted to the new schedule has been hectic, but we are finally starting to get into a bit of flow of things.

I’m an ecommerce manager for multiple bands and this period is my busiest time of the year with finalization of year end Black Friday promotions and planning for next year. (If you guys are into snowboarding or skateboarding, I can share some coupons for the brands I work for!) Brands: Thirtytwo, Etnies, eS, and Emerica.

Up until my son was born I was getting really active in the Tacoma and off road meets in the Inland Empire and OC areas of Cali. Trying to make Connect with people to off road with. Been successful and been going out with some rad groups of peeps. I pass out T3G Stickers to everyone with Tacoma’s even when not at events, if I spot a sick taco in the wild I drop a sticker under their wiper.

With that said, I’ve found myself a little less active on the forum than usual, but I’m planning to get more on it. I’ve been occasionally approving new members and welcoming new members on their build pages when I can. Commenting on the occasional threads. I need to spend some more time getting more conversations on existing threads reactivated. also, my thread page is slightly out dated. Ahhhh.

As for the vendors, I’d bet the traffic coming from T3G is minimal compared to Sources like google and Facebook, but T3G traffic is more valuable and I would bet converts at a much higher rate for the vendors. Some of the highest value we provide the vendors with is that we link to their website, we help boost their SEO and rankings in google. May be hard to justify a monthly fee for them.

I would recommend considering entering the affiliate space within an affiliate program. the way affiliates work is you place tracking code on all the vendor links and the vendors would track each link click and resulting sale on their website and then pay you usually 3-9% of each transaction total. It takes a bit of work to set up, but it could be a real money maker for the site at least to help keep the lights on and it would be low key nonintrusive to the T3G audience.

@Tyler Let me know your thoughts and if you want more info on affiliate marketing.

?? Rock On!

Big news! Congrats man. Don't worry about the lower activity on the forum due to real life stuff. I'm right there with you, and my build thread is super outdated too.

You make good points about the vendors paying to be here and maybe using an affiliate program instead. I get a little intimidated by the affiliate stuff because I'm not 100% sure how to set that up to work properly but it is something I can look into again. It's probably stupid that I haven't at least been doing that since we launched the site. Better late than never I guess.

@JerryTaco2.0, you doing okay?

 

[Deleted member 643]

Big news! Congrats man. Don't worry about the lower activity on the forum due to real life stuff. I'm right there with you, and my build thread is super outdated too.

You make good points about the vendors paying to be here and maybe using an affiliate program instead. I get a little intimidated by the affiliate stuff because I'm not 100% sure how to set that up to work properly but it is something I can look into again. It's probably stupid that I haven't at least been doing that since we launched the site. Better late than never I guess.

@JerryTaco2.0, you doing okay?

Hey guys! Sorry, busy weekend trying to get a bunch if truck projects done! Parts and repairs have been piling up so I wanted to take advantage of 4 days off and get everything done.

Things are good though. Work is crazy busy. Got a few promotions this year and we are seeing tremendous growth, so that's great. Just has me running at 200mph all day every day and theres been a good bit of travel to both sides of the country and Canada to go along with it.

No complaints here other than just not having the time to do all the things I want. First world problems though.

Still check in on the site and new member requests daily and am always very active in the toyota community.

 

[Tyler]

Hey guys! Sorry, busy weekend trying to get a bunch if truck projects done! Parts and repairs have been piling up so I wanted to take advantage of 4 days off and get everything done.

Things are good though. Work is crazy busy. Got a few promotions this year and we are seeing tremendous growth, so that's great. Just has me running at 200mph all day every day and theres been a good bit of travel to both sides of the country and Canada to go along with it.

No complaints here other than just not having the time to do all the things I want. First world problems though.

Still check in on the site and new member requests daily and am always very active in the toyota community.

Everyone is busy, that's good!

Speaking of approving members, have you all been noticing all the spam accounts that join with emails ending in .xyz? Very annoying and I've been looking into ways to block those email addresses or just entire countries at once (only allow this site in US and Canada), but it's not as simple as it sounds.

@Romp-A-Taco, in your line of work, do you have any experience with email newsletters and mailing lists/mass emails?

 

[Romp-A-Taco]

Everyone is busy, that's good!

Speaking of approving members, have you all been noticing all the spam accounts that join with emails ending in .xyz? Very annoying and I've been looking into ways to block those email addresses or just entire countries at once (only allow this site in US and Canada), but it's not as simple as it sounds.

@Romp-A-Taco, in your line of work, do you have any experience with email newsletters and mailing lists/mass emails?

I do have experience with newsletter/email lists. I’d be down to help out. What do you have in mind?

 

[Tyler]

I do have experience with newsletter/email lists. I’d be down to help out. What do you have in mind?

I know we have a lot of active members here that haven’t been online in a long time. And a lot of members that joined and made a donation but never came back.

I like to send mass emails out to members like this to try to get them back but it is a tricky thing to do because the email will often end up in their spam box.

 

[Romp-A-Taco]

I can help get set up with an email service provider. For what we are doing something like Mailchimp would work. How many members/emails would the list size be? I believe we could run a program that would not be flagged for spam if we do it right. If you are down we should start a thread to dive deeper into the project.