3 May 2007
How Do I Start Making Money Online?
I get asked this all the time, and I always seem to disappoint people when I don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution for them. As a place to earn money, the internet is just as broad and dynamic as the IRL. If you walked up to people face to face and asked them how to make money, chances are they would either tell you to do what they’re doing, or just to get a job and invest.
We all have our unique talents and interests, and we are best served by catering to them when figuring out what we want to do to earn money. I suppose financial goals also need to factor into the decision. If you’re just looking to earn gas + beer money online, just pick your favorite thing in the universe (anime, robots, clothes, whatever) and blog about it. Throw on adsense, maybe some related cpa ads, get some links, and you’re good to go. If you’re trying to make $10,000/mo to support a family, chances are you’re going to have to find something a little more involved that provides more value to the end user.
Here is my personal philosophy about generating wealth: The easiest way to make more money for yourself is to make more money for someone else. I’ve never encountered someone unwilling to give you money if you could make more for them.
I know some of you may be thinking “but rmk, I want to be my own boss… I want to own the biz blahblahblah not provide services for someone else.” Yeah, so do I, but money doesn’t always just come out of nowhere. Every online business I have has some type of client. For some sites, that client might be google or azoogle. I don’t really have to answer them, but if they fired me I would have less money.
Back on topic: Money is created when you solve economic or market inefficiencies. One of the most common inefficiencies that can be solved for a profit is exposure of products to targeted consumers.
Let’s say you love snowboarding, and you frequent several snowboarding message boards, social communities, and maybe run or visit a blog about it. Chances are there are lots of people that want to be in front of the people you are, and would be willing to pay for it. Maybe you could find a shop that sells snowboarding gear or maybe some local mountains wanting to sell more passes (idk much about snowboarding so w/e). If they have an affiliate program, great. Buy or barter for some ad space, put links in your sig, or do whatever you can to send some traffic. Bam, free money. (PS It may not be that easy. In the real world a smart site owner would already have the most relevant ads on the site and not need you to middleman it). The RMK approach would be to find a local shop that doesn’t have a web site (or has a crappy one), sell them an ecommerce site, then handle that promotion for them for a percentage of sales. Now you can make some real money doing something you enjoy.
I know that’s not really anything super creative, but most of the things I make money from are really that simple. The point I’m trying to get across is that money is made when you apply yourself to something you’re interested in, not sit around wondering how in the world other people are earning their money.
If you really are having trouble figuring out what you can do to get started, do this: Write down a few hobbies or interests you have (hint: you don’t have to be any good at them). Then write down a few businesses you know a fair amount about (could be very simple: lawn mowing, whatever your dad does for a living, whatever your roommate does for a living, whereever you had a summer job). Write down a few goals that you have for your online business. Then write down your top business resources (ie: i have money saved up for my business endeavor, i have lots of free time, i’m really good at php, i own a brick & mortar business). Stare at the list and look for overlap. It really should talk to you when you take the time to iterate what you have going for you. If not, send the list over to me and I’ll shoot you back some ideas.