SMART BUSINESS

Posts Tagged ‘Ideas’

How to get rich the smart way? Read what some creative people did:

1. Million Dollar Homepage

1000000 pixels, charge a dollar per pixel – that’s perhaps the dumbest idea for online business anyone could have possible come up with. Still, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old who came up with the idea, is now a millionaire. 

What is the idea? (from FAQ on the site)

The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, ‘The Million Dollar Homepage”. The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don’t like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!
So, everyone is welcome to buy my pixels, which are available in 100-pixel ‘blocks’ (each measuring 10×10 pixels). You will see the homepage is divided into 10,000 of these 100-pixel blocks (hence there are 1,000,000 pixels in total). The reason for selling them in 100-pixel blocks is because anything smaller would be too small to display anything meaningful.
You can buy as many pixels as you like, as long as there are some available (see the live stats in the top right corner of the page). When you buy some pixels, you can then display an image/ad/logo of your choice in the space you have purchased. You can also have the image click through to your own website. However, no obscene or offensive images are allowed.
The pixels you buy will be displayed on the homepage permanently. The homepage will not change. Using some of the money I make from the site, I guarantee to keep it online for at least 5 years, but hopefully much longer. I want it to become a kind of internet time capsule. So, in the long run, I believe the pixels will offer good value. You will have a piece of internet history!

2. SantaMail

Ok, how’s that for a brilliant idea. Get a postal address at North Pole, Alaska, pretend you are Santa Claus and charge parents 10 bucks for every letter you send to their kids? Well, Byron Reese sent over 200000 letters since the start of the business in 2001, which makes him a couple million dollars richer.

About SantaMail from their site

Since 2002, Santa has been helping us write over 275,000 personalized Christmas letters. Santa makes sure that we use the finest heirloom-quality, acid-free linen paper so that his letters last a lifetime.

As Santa’s helpers, we help Santa print his letters and then mail them to him in North Pole, Alaska where he affixes a Christmas stamp on it and sends it on the way to your child. From there, the letter gets postmarked and mailed. (After December 16, he has us mail them directly from Austin, Texas so they reach the children in time!).

3. Doggles

Create goggles for dogs and sell them online? Boy, this IS the dumbest idea for a business. How in the world did they manage to become millionaires and have shops all over the world with that one? Beyond me. 

About Doggles from their site

We are famous for Doggles   goggles for dogs – the first and only eye protection designed and created just for dogs!  Seen on CNN, Regis and Kelly, The Today Show, Good Morning America and many others, they are quite a hit with everyone who has tried them! We are also an environmentally conscious organization, using as much “green” or recycled fabrics and materials in our products as possible, always keeping in mind that what is good for our planet is also good for our pets. Our standards are high, and you will see this in each and every one of our products. We are market leaders in the design and manufacture of tough and durable and yes, even “green”, dog toys. Please be sure to check our offerings in the toy category as you look through our site. Our outdoor line has won the praise of many an outdoor enthusiast as we continue to grow and improve the line. And of course, our fashion sense has never ended as we are always adding and improving to our fashion harness line. We have a wide range of products that are truly functional and have helped many pets over the years as we continue to innovate in the pet products field.  As always, keep an eye on us for more.

4. LaserMonks

LaserMonks.com is a for-profit subsidiary of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank, an eight-monk monastery in the hills of Monroe County, 90 miles northwest of Madison. Yeah, real monks refilling your cartridges. Hallelujah! Their 2005 sales were $2.5 million! Praise the Lord.

5. AntennaBalls

You can’t sell antenna ball online. There is no way. And surely it wouldn’t make you rich. But this is exactly what Jason Wall did, and now he is now a millionaire.

6. FitDeck

Create a deck of cards featuring exercise routines, and sell it online for $18.95. Sounds like a disaster idea to me. But former Navy SEAL and fitness instructor Phil Black reported last year sales of $4.7 million. Surely beats what military pays.

7. PositivesDating.Com

How would you like to go on a date with an HIV positive person? Paul Graves and Brandon Koechlin thought that someone would, so they created a dating site for HIV positive folks last year. Projected 2006 sales are $110,000, and the two hope to have 50,000 members by their two-year mark.

8. Designer Diaper Bags

Christie Rein was tired of carrying diapers around in a freezer bag. The 34-year-old mother of three found herself constantly stuffing diapers for her infant son into freezer bags to keep them from getting scrunched up in her purse. Rein wanted something that was compact, sleek and stylish, so in November 2004, she sat down with her husband, Marcus, who helped her design a custom diaper bag that’s big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes and two to four diapers. With more than $180,000 in sales for 2005, Christie’s company, Diapees & Wipees, has bags in 22 different styles, available online and in 120 boutiques across the globe for $14.99.

9. PickyDomains

Hire another person to think of a cool domain name for you? No way people would pay for this. Actually, naming domain names for others turned out a thriving business, especially, when you make the entire process risk free. PickyDomains currently has a waiting list of people who want to PAY the service to come up with a snappy memorable domain name. PickyDomains is expected to hit six figures this year.

10. Lucky Wishbone Co.

Fake wishbones. Now, this stupid idea is just destined to flop. Who in the world needs FAKE PLASTIC wishbones? A lot of people, it turns out. Now producing 30,000 wishbones daily (they retail for 3 bucks a pop) Ken Ahroni, the company founder, expects 2006 sales to reach $1 million.

Before you can have a successful home based business, you must first possess 3 “intangibles.” These are things that must come from WITHIN you.

Intangible 1

First,you must have a strong WHY.

Why MUST you have a successful home business? What is driving you? What is it that you CAN’T have in your life anymore and/or what is it that you absolutely MUST HAVE now?
For me, I couldn’t stand working 12+ hours a day anymore and missing the experience of my children growing up. I also absolutely HAD TO HAVE the freedom of being able to control my life and finances through a little box (laptop computer) that I could carry with me anywhere in the world and not be tied to anyone’s time pressures or demands but my own. That was my carrot and my stick. I felt a great pain deep in my gut of missing out on my children’s lives and the incredible freedom that succeeding in a home based business would provide for me. I found my why. You MUST find yours.

Intangible 2

You must BELIEVE that it is possible.

If you don’t believe that it’s POSSIBLE for you to have a successful home based business or make your living from home, you won’t. It’s that simple.
For me, figuring out that it was possible was just a matter of realizing that many other people were ALREADY making great money working from home. If they could do it, I could too. It would just be a matter of figuring out what those people were doing and then adapting it to my situation.

There is no shortage of undeniable PROOF that people (millions of them) are making money working from home. Just get online and do some research and you’ll find countless testimonials and stories of REAL PEOPLE making real money on the Internet. Or head to your local bookstore and you’ll find the same documented evidence of this fact. Truth is, it’s getting easier and easier to make money with your own home based business.

I’ve always said that “affiliate marketing” (a simple way to make money from home) is the job of the future. In the old days, you had to go to a potential employer, apply for the position and hope for the best. Now you can simply go to any company you want, fill out their affiliate application and start work immediately. Affiliates are the new working class. In fact, making money with affiliate programs or making your living on the Internet is WAY MORE than possible. It is pretty much (or will be soon enough) unavoidable now. Affiliate marketing is the “job” of the future that’s already here TODAY.

Intangible 3

You must be willing to MAKE THE LEAP.

Ready, FIRE, then aim… This is the operating philosophy you MUST adopt to succeed with a home based business.
That’s backwards for most people who like to aim before they fire. The fact is that home based business success is a moving target… The only thing constant about it is change. You need to stop analyzing the game and simply jump into it. You can’t learn from the outside… You have to be *IN THE RING* to truly understand and profit from it. In fact, this is a business where you can truly be earning WHILE you’re still learning…

The lesson here is that you will never really be READY to start a home based business. You simply have to start one. It’s like having children… You’re never really ready, but when it happens you adapt and grow and therefore you succeed. This is what I call: “Making the Leap”!

The good news is that the cost of failure with having your own home based business is very small. In the “brick and mortar” world you need to evaluate things very carefully before you decide to open up a business. It’s almost always necessary to invest thousands of dollars to get an offline business off the ground. However, on the Internet you can often start a successful business for less than $100. The Plug-In Profit Site is a great example of this where you can get your own money-making site setup free within 24 hours:

http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-28425

You simply need get IN THE GAME… Each moment that you stay “out there,” you’re wasting valuable time that you could be learning and skills necessary to build a successful home based business. In fact, if you’re not in the game yet, you’re ALREADY behind the times… Make the leap to starting and building a successful home business TODAY!

About Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy:
“I Was A Washed Up Restaurant Worker Desperately Searching For
A Way To Save My Family When I Discovered The Internet And
Affiliate Marketing… 24 Months Later I Finally Cracked The
Code And Started Earning Over $10,000.00 Per Month… Now The
Same System That Saved Me Is Available To You!” Make Money Now!

http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-28425

Looking for legitimate work from home business ideas? Well you have come to the right place. We at HomeBizScout.com have scoured the web in search of legitimate work from home business ideas.

Before I start to list the ideas I just want to make sure you understand that these are not get rich quick ideas nor are they become a millionaire overnight! Oh and let’s not forget my favorite start making $5000 a week! Nope these are legitimate business ideas and they all take work, time and yes even some money to get started. Being a business owner is HARD WORK!

If you are not a hard worker or more importantly a self starter then please don’t waste your time or money trying to start a legitimate work from home business. It’s not going to work for you. I am sorry but I just prefer to keep it honest! Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart! You have to wear many hats, work extremely long hours on little to no sleep, and you have to make extreme sacrifices!

Now that I have gotten my short sermon out of the way, without further ado let me introduce you to 10 legitimate work from home business ideas…

Business Coaching
Catering/Personal Chef
Childcare/Nanny Services
Cleaning Services
Computer Repair
Customer Service
Data Entry
Event Planning
Gift Basket Business/Gift Basket Maker
Virtual Assistant

If you would like more information on any of the home business ideas listed above or you would like to get more ideas make sure to visit HomeBizScout.com – The Insider’s Guide To Working From Home.