Entries Tagged 'Self-employment' ↓

It is not a secret, actually. I don’t believe in secrets although it is a common practice to overuse this word nowadays. I believe in hard work and the right STRATEGY. And this is what David Hainemeier Hansson is talking about in his latest presentation at Startup School 08. David is a creator of the web-application framework Ruby on Rails and a partner in 37signals, one of the most agile web agencies in the world.

Watch The Secret of Making Money Online by David Heinemeier Hansson (length: 31:52) on Omnisio

I can’t agree more with David as I am bit tired of all these venture capital talks, “build the new Facebook” discussions and giving away everything for free in the Internet. I believe that quality content and applications should have a price tag. It is not only good for their creators but also for users as we tend to respect more things that we need to pay for. If you have something for free, you can throw it to the bin and forget about it. If you just have paid $30 for an e-book or $300 for an online course, then you will put effort in reading/learning.

In my last post I wrote about Teaching Sells and I am glad its launch was successful and that premium content is getting more popular. We really need more value in the Net as it is just overcrowded with domain parking ads, AdSense spam sites, spam links and a lot of non-value things.

Coming back to David’s presentation, I really like his approach and I share his point. But what I really enjoyed from his video is what he said about developing your own business online - you don’t have to hurry, you don’t need to hire 20 developers and have a new website launched in one month aiming to be another YouTube. There is a lot of space for niche Internet products and you don’t need to be a genius to have your business online that will at least give you the freedom of working on your own.

The secret from David - stop another Internet bubble madness and build some decent business online.

I have found two great studies about being innovative in creating value in the first place instead of concentrating on making money (online).

1. The Art of Innovation - 55 minutes of Guy Kawasaki’s presentation - an Apple ex-employee and current venture capitalist talking about creating meaning, finding the right mantra and a great chance he missed - a lot of interesting examples, humour and many valuable advices. Where are your products and services? In the top right corner of the above chart? Make a coffee, sit comfortably and watch the video.

Guy is a start-up guru with lots of great publications you can find details about on his blog.

2. Brian Clark from Copyblogger has just started his new initiative: Teaching Sells.

In this quick and easy 22-page report (or optional audio recording), you’ll learn:

- Whether blogging is dead or not
- How to avoid the tyranny of Google
- Why you should forget the “Long Tail”
- How to truly leverage Web 2.0
- Why you’re not normal, and why that’s a good thing
- How the true power of the Internet is being missed
- What “teaching sells” means to you

For many months I haven’t read such a good report regarding online business. Valuable review of future trends and an attempt to find the best model for your Internet revenue stream. But it is just the beginning of something bigger. After reading the 22 pages I was ready to ask for Brian’s PayPal account to send money and buy another parts of the report… Very clever addictive copywriting.

The more I read in the Internet about becoming self-employed, the more I feel I will succeed. Why? Because becoming an Internet entrepreneur is like quitting cigarettes or losingweight - gather more people around you with similar goals and it will be easier to reach your targets together. I regularly feed myself with articles and ebooks of people who have developed their own business or are on the way to it. Not only makes me feel more confident about my efforts, but also there is something else - I feel that we all do this together, especially that most of this people want to share their knowledge, support you and guide you because they know how hard it is in the beginning.

A friend of mine went to the USA for summer holidays and while doing some sightseeing, she met a guy and started to have a chat with him. They were talking friendly for a while and then she said she would like to come to America to continue her studies but can’t afford that. And like in the American dream, he offered her financial support to cover all the costs. He said that somebody helped him in the same way when he was young. After graudating from university she is now studying MBA while working as a stock market analyst in one of the companies in North Carolina.

Probably you have heard a lot of stories like this and they are indeed nice to read but what is my purpose of writing about that?

Continue reading →

If you can’t, have a read about Michael Arrington, a former attorney and entrepreneur who is now 37 and two years ago nothing seemed to show what is coming. He became famous because of his TechCrunch blog and now has a whole farm of different kind of tech blogs with a few people taking care of them. Working 16 hours a day and living in one of the richest places in the USA he is one of the most influential tech journalists. Find out why he didn’t want to sell TechCrunch for $8.5 million, what are his plans for the future and what is so special about this guy.