Post: #151

(11-04-2012 12:34 PM)w00t Wrote:  

(11-02-2012 04:25 AM)SelfPaid Wrote:  

(11-02-2012 02:22 AM)w00t Wrote:  Affiliate marketign works but it can take months for sites to rate well and till you have figured out your website in a way that it converts. For me it took over 6 months to make money. And after 2 years the vendor decided to close his affiliate system and I was SOL.

You're better off creating your own info product and having affiliates sell for you. Why would you be selling other ppls shit if you can sell your own and make way more money?
Or online freelancing which gives you a small income pretty much instantly if you have some skills.

That is one of the reason I started learning how to Invest and Trade. It took me almost three Months to get a site up and running and profitable and Ihadfreelancer who basically did that for a living for me.

still I basically failed after the Panda update I had to rethink my strategies and change my approach to learn a skill that makes Money much much faster.

I am now interested in online business more in an Investment Way instead of building things up using my Time. Since I think it is a great complimentary to other streams of income that I have in other areas.

I am always looking fore ways to build things, and Systemyze them so that they run with minimum Managment and don't take away much Time out of my Day.

1. What would be the average Cost of a Niche site from Start to Finish using the resources you have and excluding you're own Time?

2. What does the average site make Per Month for you ?

I made about 100€ a month with my site, completely passive and all organic traffic. Start up costs were less than 100 dollar as I made eveverything myself.

The problem with affiliate marketing IMO is you're too dependent on third parties.

If you rely on organic traffic and google changes their algorithm ... youre fucked.

If your vendor decides to close the affiliate program ... youre fucked.

If you can sell other ppls stuff you might aswell build a list, create a product and sell your own stuff. That way you're less dependent on other parties AND you get to keep all the profit.

Exactly that was the Problem I don't do Online Bussines anymore but If I would do it I would be the one in Controll I sold physical Products and had to change thing's everytime a vendor dissapeared it was just giving my head ache Now I don't talk to anyone except Business Partners and Friends and I don't need anyone to make Money except my Brain and Internet acces no custumores no staff at least not on a fixed salary the only Time someone get's paid is when he makes a profit fore me but then it's 25 % of the Profits which is a Win Win Situation fore both since I have the Risk.

Selling you're own stuff is great and I have respeckt fore people who can pull that of I know people who are highly succesful doing that but it's just to much Work, Risk (insert excuse) fore me.

I am just more Investor and Trader than Entrepreneure ore Manager I like to Invest into what works I Love systems and creating them fore my Life and I Trade what I know that makes me Money maybe that is a weakness but diving into starting a new Bussines ore actualy managing one is not my thing.
I been there worked my ass of and still went broke after making other people more Money even my business plan didn't help That my employes where scared of the google update but now I know.

I prefer sticking to the more boring things that work Buy Low sell high invest in casflow positive real estate look at Land development's I don't do this things yet except Trading, but I am working Towards that and Learning the things I need to Learn and geting to know the people I need to know to implement it succesfully.

Post: #152

VA benifits

Post: #153

(11-07-2012 03:31 PM)urbannomad Wrote:  VA benifits

Post: #154

I was a cubicle slave for 5 years in Honolulu, mostly web software development, I talked my employer to allow me to work remotely, so I can live pretty much anywhere that has high-speed internet. Its pretty sweet deal for me. I'm looking to head to Colombia for a month or more depending how I like it.

Post: #155

Self-Maid, what resources do you recommend for Investing?

I find I'm like you - a systems builder/tweaker, and not a manager or relationships builder.

I can probably do those things, and get better at them, but Im much more naturally introverted. Any tips / good overviews on pro investing?

Post: #156

nowadays I'm coach online and that's how I earn money..I'm learning in how to invest to diversify my founts of money

Post: #157

(12-20-2012 09:46 AM)spanish_courage Wrote:  nowadays I'm coach online and that's how I earn money..I'm learning in how to invest to diversify my founts of money

What do you coach?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #158

(12-20-2012 03:13 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(12-20-2012 09:46 AM)spanish_courage Wrote:  nowadays I'm coach online and that's how I earn money..I'm learning in how to invest to diversify my founts of money

What do you coach?

bodybuilding

Post: #159

(11-24-2009 09:18 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  I'm just curious. I'm not asking for specific details about your financial business. But a lot of guys on this site seem to be able to travel for many many weeks and often months and don't seem to have much concerns about money. If you do have normal jobs, how are you getting them to let you off for so much time?

What are you guys doing that's allowing you to travel for such extended periods? Do you have businesses? Or passive income? Are you freelancing on the road? Doing odd jobs on the road and getting paid under the table? Voracious savers? How do ya guys do it?

I'm a consultant. I have to travel for work every week so I earn a ton of frequent flyer miles plus other loyalty points for hotels and car rental companies. Sometimes my projects are in cool cities, but sometimes they are in places that make suburbia look exciting.

I have 5 weeks of paid vacation each year, plus holidays, so I have plenty of opportunities to travel for pleasure.

Post: #160

(01-20-2010 10:29 PM)kingkong Wrote:  Clocked up 8 years experience programming computers and embedded systems in various domains. Got some contacts. Rewrote a couple niche business applications and sold them.

Everybody wants to think there's some kind of angle or hustle. G manifesto wants you to read dozens of shitty books. Others want you to believe you can start some stupid website and pull in substantial money on autopilot.

Here's how you make money:

1) On someone else's dime (employer or contracts) get really good at something hard and unglamorous. Emphatically NOT trading, poker, writing, or anything like that. Too crowded. Think plumbing, agricultural products, whatever. Specialized niche software in my case.

2) If you're truly good and it's a skill of any value, business opportunities will almost automatically present themselves.

3) Pounce on opportunities where you will own rather than be paid by the owners.

This plan will take you six years at a minimum.

I'd like to talk to you more about this. Specifically, I'm trying to figure out which kinds of specialized knowledge would be high paying but not bore me to death. Most of the guys I know that are rich followed this path. They got a niche specialty and now do consulting with it. Does anyone have any ideas on what would be a good specialty to learn?

A little background, I am mid twenties, Economics degree but not much else in the way of skills. My interests lie in real estate but not really sure how to start. Also, I have no interest in being location independent. I love the city I live in and want to build a business or cash flow here. Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to PM me.

Post: #161

I have a good friend who lives in the FSU. Started up his niche software company, built the first release himself, later hired a couple guys from Asia who work virtually. He has no office, no secretary, minimal overhead.

The company made around $1.2 million in revenue last year, he took home around 750k of that. He's been running it for the last decade. He has never lost a customer because they're locked in.

There are guys chasing after pipedreams trying to launch their internet start-up with venture funding. Others bust their asses cranking out blog post after blog post, selling adsense and affiliate links trying to "automate passive income."

But there are few things that can scale as well as a well-crafted web application that customers pay a monthly subscription for. The older, stodgier, and conservatively boring the customer, the better...because these types of people aren't constantly flipping out trying to find the new new thing. They just stick with what works and gives them value.

Post: #162

(01-17-2013 03:14 AM)temujin Wrote:  I have a good friend who lives in the FSU. Started up his niche software company, built the first release himself, later hired a couple guys from Asia who work virtually. He has no office, no secretary, minimal overhead.

The company made around $1.2 million in revenue last year, he took home around 750k of that. He's been running it for the last decade. He has never lost a customer because they're locked in.

There are guys chasing after pipedreams trying to launch their internet start-up with venture funding. Others bust their asses cranking out blog post after blog post, selling adsense and affiliate links trying to "automate passive income."

But there are few things that can scale as well as a well-crafted web application that customers pay a monthly subscription for. The older, stodgier, and conservatively boring the customer, the better...because these types of people aren't constantly flipping out trying to find the new new thing. They just stick with what works and gives them value.

Great story. I tried my hand at software development at one time. Just a small operation with one full time programmer in my office of other staff who were web developers. I ran into problems with the software needing to be updated to run on new operating systems, with updates being needed for it to mesh with other software which also regularly updated, and with competitors bringing in alternative products. His efforts made me money, but I didn't have either the right original idea nor a good execution of marketing it. That your guy has been able have a long run on a software product is slick. He had an inspired moment - or a long series of them.

I've heard stories of guys doing it the other way - finding an opportunity that is temporary and creating code to exploit it - such as making email, social media, ang blog spamming software, or SEO software. With those ventures you need a new idea and new product regularly, as the situation changes, but can make big chunks of money at a time.

I wonder if there is any way to codify the steps between creative inspiration and mature execution? I've had problems before on limiting my focus to the best new ideas, problems with follow through, and problems with follow through on the follow through. But it's that initial inspiration that doesn't seem to be teachable - identifying the opportunities.

I met one guy online who makes his income by networking. He's a broker. For anything, but mostly agricultural products. So all he does is network; bringing buyers and seller together.

And other guys focus only on marketing, with no focus on production or distribution. And others focus only on lead generation.

And some run call centers. Or online personal assistant shophouses. Or financial services.

There is no end to the opportunities, to the different ways to approach the markets. It's an interesting time because most people don't have the entrepreneurial mindset, and so there is less competition in many areas than you'd expect - and with the possibility of making sales globally, even a small niche market becomes a big market.

I know of one guy who has fishermen collect reef fish and sells them to colletors in Japan.

I mean, it just goes on and on.

Post: #163

xsplat, talking of codifying the initial inspiration... have you heard of Dane Maxwell?

He's built a few different software products that are nice, simple recurring services that solve one problem for a business. No issues with integration with other software etc.

check it out, each of those is a different software product:
http://www.zannee.com/

His on-page marketing (copywriting, vids and layout) is obviously very good.

What I love about his approach is he doesn't even bother spotting opportunities. He just thinks of a few different businesses that are a) lucrative and b) he'd like to help, and he emails them and arranges a 20 minute interview. He'll do "idea extraction" where he asks them all about their major pain points, frustrations, etc - and then he'll figure out how to solve it, either with software, an info product, or some sort of outsourced service with philipinos doing the grunt work.

Then he'll build it, even consulting with the few people he's called and interviewed for their input on the product. Once they're delighted with it, he'll just market it to more businesses in the same industry. I think he said he even gets good results cold calling and cold-emailing. Apparently its easy to market and does well because it's laser-targetted to a frustrating pain point (i.e. it's a "great idea"), without having to spot the opportunity himself... just extract it from people he wants to serve.

Post: #164

I think it's important to realize that a lot of Internet Marketing (and I'd consider Dane to be part of that mix) is re-using "old" concepts and packaging it for the "how to make money online crowd".

Idea extraction is just a coined term for finding the business pain and solving it with a minimum viable product.

This is what product managers (good ones anyways) have been doing since software businesses began.

The lean startup movement (and agile development) is built on these principles: talk to the customer, find the pain, build the MVP (minimum viable product). Pivot if necessary. It's what every incubator or "start-up" coach will repeat ad nauseum these days.

The positive for a software business is that it can scale tremendously. And it's extremely lucrative if you get onto the right niche (old stodgy customers who are cashflow rich and who will buy in and stay locked in).

But if it's too lucrative, then you're going to have other sharks in the water with you. So the key becomes finding industries that you'd describe as low-hanging fruit...lucrative, but not too lucrative -- not too sexy, not too well-known, and not too tech-savvy.

Post: #165

(01-17-2013 03:14 AM)temujin Wrote:  I have a good friend who lives in the FSU. Started up his niche software company, built the first release himself, later hired a couple guys from Asia who work virtually. He has no office, no secretary, minimal overhead.

The company made around $1.2 million in revenue last year, he took home around 750k of that. He's been running it for the last decade. He has never lost a customer because they're locked in.

Pretty good margins.

Post: #166

I make my main income teaching english in japan. I work for an english school and have some private students.

Other streams
I make
$40 a year on stock market.
$3 a month from Iherb.com
$50 a year interest.

I am trying to increase the amonunt of money I make in the other streams. Its a slow procedure, but I can see it growing.

Post: #167

(01-17-2013 04:30 PM)temujin Wrote:  I think it's important to realize that a lot of Internet Marketing (and I'd consider Dane to be part of that mix) is re-using "old" concepts and packaging it for the "how to make money online crowd".

Idea extraction is just a coined term for finding the business pain and solving it with a minimum viable product.

This is what product managers (good ones anyways) have been doing since software businesses began.

The lean startup movement (and agile development) is built on these principles: talk to the customer, find the pain, build the MVP (minimum viable product). Pivot if necessary. It's what every incubator or "start-up" coach will repeat ad nauseum these days.

The positive for a software business is that it can scale tremendously. And it's extremely lucrative if you get onto the right niche (old stodgy customers who are cashflow rich and who will buy in and stay locked in).

But if it's too lucrative, then you're going to have other sharks in the water with you. So the key becomes finding industries that you'd describe as low-hanging fruit...lucrative, but not too lucrative -- not too sexy, not too well-known, and not too tech-savvy.

Without having been involved in lean startups or agile development, it's probably unlikely most people would come across the latest thinking on business concepts like these. I like that Dane for example has packaged these ideas and communicated them very well, and also figured out how to incorporate location independence and extensive automation. Very few ideas are genuinely new - just because something isn't new doesn't mean it isn't valuable to people.

Anyway, good point about picking the right niche and pool to swim in. Yeah, lucrative businesses with stodgy customers who stick with providers for years. Perhaps the more boring the better.

Post: #168

Is anyone on here in product design? I have a killer product idea but have no idea how to start it up.

Post: #169

(01-17-2013 04:40 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

(01-17-2013 03:14 AM)temujin Wrote:  I have a good friend who lives in the FSU. Started up his niche software company, built the first release himself, later hired a couple guys from Asia who work virtually. He has no office, no secretary, minimal overhead.

The company made around $1.2 million in revenue last year, he took home around 750k of that. He's been running it for the last decade. He has never lost a customer because they're locked in.

Pretty good margins.

That is why I love software. The margins can be fantastic. It is almost to the point where I would rather invest money into a software project compared to stocks or real estate.

The biggest expense is in the beginning trying to get it built. After that, management and enhancements can cost very little unless you reinvent the software like Microsoft seems to do.

Most people don't like change. They stick with what they know. That is great for keeping customers and also great for not having to massively change the software. In fact, a massive change will normally piss off customers.

If you set up the company/project structure right, you are not tied to any location.

Post: #170

(01-18-2013 10:58 PM)MattC Wrote:  Is anyone on here in product design? I have a killer product idea but have no idea how to start it up.

I have launched around 55 physical products. Working on three others at the moment, but time is not on my side. The world is awash in amazing ideas, its a shame that most get stuck in the "fear of manufacturing" stage.

PM me to talk more.

Post: #171

(01-17-2013 08:01 AM)RichieP Wrote:  xsplat, talking of codifying the initial inspiration... have you heard of Dane Maxwell?

He's built a few different software products that are nice, simple recurring services that solve one problem for a business. No issues with integration with other software etc.

check it out, each of those is a different software product:
http://www.zannee.com/

His on-page marketing (copywriting, vids and layout) is obviously very good.

What I love about his approach is he doesn't even bother spotting opportunities. He just thinks of a few different businesses that are a) lucrative and b) he'd like to help, and he emails them and arranges a 20 minute interview. He'll do "idea extraction" where he asks them all about their major pain points, frustrations, etc - and then he'll figure out how to solve it, either with software, an info product, or some sort of outsourced service with philipinos doing the grunt work.

Then he'll build it, even consulting with the few people he's called and interviewed for their input on the product. Once they're delighted with it, he'll just market it to more businesses in the same industry. I think he said he even gets good results cold calling and cold-emailing. Apparently its easy to market and does well because it's laser-targetted to a frustrating pain point (i.e. it's a "great idea"), without having to spot the opportunity himself... just extract it from people he wants to serve.

I looked up this guy and it was a really inspiring story. Who does he get to actually code and bankroll the software solutions? I've talked to higher level guys in my industry in a similar problem solving fashion, and thought of some good software solutions that they'd be interested in. Thing is I'm very much a beginner level programmer, so I would have to hire someone with experience. I'm not sure of the capital needed to code the project.

Post: #172

(01-20-2013 10:42 AM)Neo Wrote:  I looked up this guy and it was a really inspiring story. Who does he get to actually code and bankroll the software solutions? I've talked to higher level guys in my industry in a similar problem solving fashion, and thought of some good software solutions that they'd be interested in. Thing is I'm very much a beginner level programmer, so I would have to hire someone with experience. I'm not sure of the capital needed to code the project.

From what I can gather...

-Getting the coding done: Hires a programmer. Gives them a programming test first and makes sure they check in for updates every day until it's done. He says if you can code yourself, "cut your fingers off" lol. Point being you should be focussed on finding pain + selling the solution, not coding.

-Bankrolling it: supposedly he uses great copy to get people to pay in advance. He'll give them a detailed PDF showing the design and interface that they can expect. He reckons if it solves the pain point enough, people will be willing to pay upfront. I would think thats quite hard to do... but possible I guess.

Other ways could be giving the developer a revenue share in exchange for lower upfront payment, etc. He also emphasizes great copy in any hiring communications - getting the developer on board with your vision, excited about building + being part of something great, etc.

Post: #173

I have a customer service job during the week at a mall. On the side I do labor and I have done some semi-gay things for money just no penetration. Not proud but I really need the money.

Post: #174

(01-21-2013 02:24 PM)blackglasses Wrote:  I have a customer service job during the week at a mall. On the side I do labor and I have done some semi-gay things for money just no penetration. Not proud but I really need the money.

Like what semi gay things? How much did you make?

Post: #175

(01-21-2013 04:11 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  Like what semi gay things?

I think that's man-to-man porn?

"Lifes about, shooting your load" [in a female!!]