I recently spent some time working on the development of one of my key word domains. I started by picking up the name after hearing the topic discussed over a period of weeks among my wife and her friends. Seeing that there was interest here, I thought it might make a good directory site so I did some searching and found a memorable, generic name that fit the niche. I invested a couple of weeks kicking around different logo concepts and after much input from the target demographic, I selected a final logo.
At the same time, I spent hours researching the possible categories, parent companies, individuals, related products, ideas, etc. I then worked out the details of how the site would work, how I planned to promote it, possible articles to include and what the break even point would require. Still looking promising, I invested some more time and money into a layout concept for the site. At this point, I asked myself the key question, "Is this where I want to spend my time?"
The answer was a clear "no." While I think the idea is a good one with a great market demographic, I am not ready to invest the time required to get this off the ground and running. I don't have a lot of personal passion around this particular topic (it's really more of a women's product). I'm not saying that I won't pick this up again at some point in the future, but time is precious. I have other ideas and projects where I would prefer to spend my time right now. Another option is to possibly sell the name and logo.
Should I have thought this through before I started and saved myself some money? Probably. But I made the decision and the point that I think was best. I started moving forward and reassessed the situation as I did. I didn't feel committed to the project to the point where there was no turning back, that could have been a bigger loss. I think it was the best decision for the movement. The time and money invested can still be leveraged in the future if I chose to pick it up again. Developing a site with passion far out weighs the "work" involved in a site developed for the hopes of profit only.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/4649947/