Australia’s rich young entrepreneurs
September 25, 2008
The Australian magazine BRW has published a list of Australia’s richest entrepreneurs. Heading the list is Nathan Tinkler, 32, who has a net worth of $440 million. He made his money mining investments.
More interesting (at least for me) is Daniel Tzvetkoff who at 24 is in 15th place with a net worth of $120 million. The article mentioned he ran an internet business, so a further search revealed that he operates the company Intabill, an internet payment processor like PayPal. They seem to service clients that most payment processors tend to avoid, porn and gambling. Two areas that would have high levels of fraud, but if you could avoid this, potentially and obviously very profitable areas.
The other internet entrepreneur on the list is Ben Keighran, who has a net worth of $28 million. He started a company Bluepulse, which allows people to use content from their PC and use it on their mobile phone.
My next great project
September 24, 2008
The Olympics are over and at least the monetary gain although the monetary gain from the site was disappointing, I am soldiering on working on a new project.
Most of the sites I started are doing ok now and don’t require too much maintenance, therefore I can put a lot of time into my next website. For my next project, I wanted to focus on what I am interested in and what I can see will be fun and interesting developing and more importantly has good opportunities for advertising and affiliate income.
I want to combine blogging, news articles and user generated content into the site. It is something I have been successful with other sites and I hope to replicate in my new project. Since I have less to write about here, I am going to document my goals for the site and how I plan to meet them.
When I did the 28 sites in 28 days challenge it got a bit of interest, so I think it is something that both I and my readers might benefit from.
Website idea: industry blog/news site
September 22, 2008
Many internet gurus will tell you to build websites based on niche areas with high search volumes. If you are looking for something different, why not start a news site or blog (if there is any difference) on a particular industry. Most industries have some kind of trade magazine that all companies that belong to that industry subscribe to.
Most of those publications are pretty dry reading and are published about once a month. If you need an idea for a website, why not create a blog on that particular industry. You could spice it up a little with lots of industry gossip and news. I would probably restrict it to an industry in just one country or region. You aren’t going to get a huge amount of traffic, but it would be easy to become the online authority for that particular industry.
I imagine you would have to start with doing fairly boring news, but you could then start doing interviews with CEOs and key players in the industry. Most executives love seeing their name in print, so they will send interviews to all of their colleagues and friends. Eventually I think you would get people sending you anonymous tips, which you could then break news and regular business newspapers and magazines might pick up on. Of course, you would need to be careful not to publish anything defaming.
I doubt that Adsense or affiliate links would work. You would probably need to sell advertising directly like what magazines do. Since your costs would be much lower than a printed magazine, I think advertisers would see this as a good deal. Most executives have email and internet now, so I don’t think it would take too long to get recognized in the industry.
Adding a job board could be another source of revenue. Make friends with recruiters and I am should you could pick up on some great gossip.
The tech industry is already so well covered, I would target an industry that is traditionally not so tech savy. Hotel, airlines, mining are some ideas.
So-long Beijing
September 17, 2008
It has been nearly a month since I posted my last entry to this blog, which is probably the longest break I have had from writing here. I suppose I felt like I needed to take a break from blogging after the Olympics. I am actually writing this from Australia, where I arrived back in Melbourne last week.
The visa problem I had was never resolved. Worse still, the agent I was dealing with disappeared and I never got my passport back. I then had to explain to Chinese immigration why I had lost my passport and overstayed my visa. It was a little nerve racking, but fortunately I got away with just paying a fine.
I spent so much time on the Olympics site, I am now at a bit of a lose end. Fortunately, my other sites don’t require too much maintenance, but continue to earn passive income from Adsense and affiliate programs.
I have been doing some thinking since the Olympics and I want to change the focus of how I make money on the internet. I learned some good lessons blogging the Olympics. I used to think building hundreds of niche websites was the way to make money, but now I believe it is better to have one or just a few solid sites that you spend 90 per cent of your time working on.
So now I am brainstorming my next project and deciding on which sites I want to keep working on and which ones I want to cull.
