March 2008

As an entrepreneur, I THOUGHT I work for nobody but me - wrong!

For many of us calling ourselves an ‘entrepreneur’, we often ‘work’ for other higher entities to run our business smoothly.

Franchisees work for their franchisor

As a franchisee, you work for your franchisor - You follow guidelines; You pay your franchisor a royalty; You market your store and your franchisor’s brand. Wait, wait, wait! How? why? Well, it IS, technically, their brand! You just lease the brand name… you pay for the lease in term of franchise fee, remember? You don’t own the brand. Period.

Viral marketers work for the company they affiliated with

Affiliate marketings, MLMs, and other related viral marketing activities promote the company that own the affiliate system. Yes, you can be wealthy through viral marketing, but you actually make the company you affiliated with even wealthier.

Search engine marketers and online business owner work for Google!

No matter how hard you try to deny, face it. You work for Google! You bust your gut days in and days out market your websites and blogs and use SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques and services available to get a better Google PageRank, because the higher the PR, the higher the traffic, which means, more $$$ to you - And, oh, remember AdSense? There! you work for Google.

Other business activities that actually need somebody else to make your business works

You have created better shaving blade, but you need shaving device to put our blade in. You own good products, but you make your living entirely as an eBay Seller. You grow crops, but you need a marketplace to sell them. So many examples, with one conclusion - most of us doesn’t really enjoy the perk of doing business and dictate the market - we NEED others to survive; We ‘work’ for them.

I don’t want to work for anybody! I want to work for myself!

Well, again, face it. The reality is, not many among us is a pure, hardcore, entrepreneur. Put those guys - including authority names such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett - and the likes out of the equation, then you can find you and me there - working hard to put our business afloat, and hopefully, on autopilot (on passive income) - with the help of other, greater, entities (a.k.a. marketplaces, other companies, etc.)

How to work for ourselves

I have some obvious pointers on how to work for the sake of ourselves, but hey! It’s half dream, half reality - just try shooting for the stars!

• Own the system - own the affiliate system, own the franchising system, create automated business system - just… create it, own it, and let others work hard for you!
• Create a widget or an invention that hacks society lifestyle pattern - create a breakthrough that change people live their life - like the Internet. Like the Apple iPod. Like the Microsoft Windows. Like LED. Like flexible display that can be rolled up as small as a pencil. Like nuclear weapon (If Einstein lived today, what would he do to the bombs?).
• Be a Venture Capitalist - Those businesses NEED you and your money badly.
• Be a good-doer, philantrophic businessman or social entrepreneur - A lot of you is needed in this ill world.

There’s there. Who do you work for today?

Ivan Widjaya
Work for social bookmarkers and directories :)

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This is the question that seems simple yet not many people can answer straight away.

When I asked this to myself, I keep wondering and pondering for the next 4 weeks.

I finally came to a conclusion: I don’t really like doing business - I do business to buy my family and I a lifestyle (not quite there yet, but we’re definitely shooting for the moon :D). I love starting up or buying business, but starting up or buying is not my life. It’s indeed my passion, but it’s not the goal I want to reach.

What I really aim in life? I want to support my family well. I want to be a venture capitalist. I want to start charity projects. I want to travel the world, anywhere, anytime, without worrying about my business or bringing my business with me. I want to own a lake view lodge to live in. I want to live wherever we like. I want to achieve all my personal goals. So many things I want in life that is beyond doing business.

Here’s my game plan: When I buy business, I buy cash flow. Pretty much like Warren Buffett did. When I buy cash flow, I buy ’safety investment’ - precious metals, precious stones and the likes. When my cash doesn’t work hard enough, I flip the business to buy a bigger business with better cash flow. I will do this over and over again until I reach my goal.

I’ve tell you my reason. What about you? Why are you doing business?

Ivan Widjaya
Better lifestyle seeker

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I love passive income business. I crave for passive income business. I pursue passive income business.

There’s nothing better in the business world, both online and offline, than passive income business.

What do I mean by passive income business? It’s businesses that requires minimal to no active involvement of the business owner.

The essence of passive income business is time and freedom. You can be a high-earning professionals, but when you stop working, you stop earning. You can also own a business and work full time in it, typically sole proprietor companies, but your problems are similar to those of professionals.

What about blogging? Yes, you can earn big time by blogging - Some make by the hundreds of dollar per month, a small few earn a six digit income per month. In those, there are one-man bloggers and passive-income bloggers (usually multi-author blogs.) Just like offline businesses.

Passive income business lets you decide when and how to work - usually at a minimum level of involvement.

The example of passive income business

Offline business - business that involving no or little uses of Internet and online activities

• Coin operated business - car wash, arcade games, candy dispensing
• Real estate business - from rental incomes
• Stock investing and passive business ownership - from dividends

Online business - Internet business

• User generated content business - forums, galleries, directories, web proxies, download sites
• Multi-authored blogs and webzines
• Information product sales - e-books, membership sites -

Those are some of the limitless number of passive income business opportunities. The possibilities are limited only by your creativity.

I always seek for new business ventures that are passive business - I am LAZY and enjoy FREEDOM - owning passive businesses just right for me. Most people consider return on investment (ROI) and break even point (BEP) as number one priority. To me, the number one priority is no owner involvement - even for longer ROI and BEP period.

Passive business is hip and cool. What do you think?

Enjoy your business journey!

Ivan Widjaya
Passive business owner

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I want to sell you something, again :D

If you followed me in my previous posts, you might already know that I only promote products that I use myself. What’s the point to promote something you don’t know the benefits of it?

As you might already know, on the Net, knowledge is power. The most expensive products on the Internet is information products - webinars, ebooks, online mentoring programs, and many more. The reason is obvious - knowledge is important, if not everything, to ace the Net.

I am lucky enough to join The Ultimate SuperTip program by Harvey Segal - Please read my previous post about this, How to Say Goodbye to Google PageRank and Start Making Real Money Online.

The Ultimate SuperTip program is abundant with memberships and information products. One of the great memberships Harvey Segal offering to affiliates is the SureFire Wealth.

I am a SureFire Wealth silver membership holder price tagged at USD 147 per annum - Since I joined The Ultimate SuperTip, the SureFire Wealth silver membership is FREE. Actually, SureFire Wealth offers three types of membership - free, silver, and gold. The difference in each membership lies in the quality and the number of products available to be downloaded. Trust me, the quality IS different!

You are ‘buried’ with a collection of eBooks, audio and video downloads, softwares, and templates design. All come with a review, so that you know what others think about a product.

Why joining SureFire Wealth is a good investment? This is where my sales pitch begin :) Yes, free information is everywhere on the Net. But, like any other things in life, often, quality comes with a price tag. All I can say is that joining SureFire Wealth has bring me insider information that is invaluable. Of course, most of the information from the products is not widely available on the Net! Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense anymore to pay for the membership - so far, it makes sense to me :)

And, oh, I almost forgot - Another benefit of joining SureFire Wealth is that you are enabled to resell and master resell the listed products - for FREE - as long as you still have your membership active. Depends on how much do you want it, you can literally resell infinite number of products for the whole year!

Be sure to look around by visiting my affiliate link to SureFire Wealth, or if you are eager to get your hands down and dirty, please go directly to SureFire Wealth sales page.

Just one word of suggestion - I personally recommend to to join Harvey Segal’s The Ultimate SuperTip, rather than joining the SureFire Wealth directly. Why? Because being The Ultimate SuperTip affiliate is CHEAPER than joining the SureFire Wealth, and the money you pay for The Ultimate SuperTip is valid for a lifetime, compare to the yearly membership of SureFire Wealth. It’s your call.

You can download Harvey Segal’s The Ultimate SuperTip e-book for free. If you having interest in Harvey’s concepts, do join the program to receive the valuable memberships and products.

Or, if you think you can’t wait for the big fish, cast your rod directly to SureFire Wealth sales page.

Ivan Widjaya
Newbie affiliate marketer

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About

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I’ve been interested in business flipping since this past few years - that is, all things related to buying and selling of businesses.

This time, I’m planning to buy a website or blog - preferably a blog - to start my journey as web property investor.

Why buying a website or blog?

To me, all related to the Internet is going to be big (actually, it is already big!). Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com is really influential in making me re-thinking about my business journey - web property IS hot and IS booming - unlike the real estate market that is already been saturated, web property business is in rapid growth.

How rapid is the growth?

Very, very fast! Typical to anything related to the Internet, website and blog’s value is rising rapidly.

I follow the website and blog flipping marketplaces at Sitepoint.com and Digitalpoint.com to see what and how more experienced people wheels and deals.

All I can say is that websites and blogs price tag is rising steadily - I used to see blogs priced as 3-4 times the monthly cash flow. Now, there are blogs sold at prices way, way over tenfold of their monthly cash flow. I’ve seen price tags ranged from a few hundreds dollar to tens of thousands of dollar. It’s getting hot in here!

What kind of websites or blogs am I looking for?

First of all, I prioritise on buying a blog. I look for blogs with strong traffic and, above all, strong readership. I look for high comment to post ratio, which indicates the strength of visitors involvement in the blog.

I always having interest in blogs that have niche topic. If it’s not possible, then I look for how-to-make-money-online kind of blogs.

I, of course, am buying my way into online money making - I look for blogs that actually make some money regularly. Not a particular amount, but I’d like to see blogs that make money from other source of revenues than PPC ads from Google Adsense and the likes.

I actually prefer blogs that make money from advertisers that pay for a certain period of time (i.e. monthly or quarterly) in exchange of displaying their banner ads on site.

I look to buy a blog which price tag is less than 10 times of the blog’s revenue, with three digits to low four digits price tag.

Will I sell my purchased websites and blogs in the future?

I will eventually flip them if, and only if, I have other projects that need a lot of my resources. As long as my portfolio performs well, I’ll hold to it as long as I can.

What caution should be taken prior buying and selling websites and blogs?

I do the following:

• Check buyer/seller’s background
• Check buyer/seller’s previous activities in the marketplace
• Check and validate what others say about the buyer/seller
• If you want to make sure about a thing or two, ask as much question as you can to the buyer/seller - being a noob is better that regret later!
• Don’t forget to check the price tag! Is it overvalued? If it’s undervalued, investigate the sites/blogs - undervalued sites/blogs are not always a good thing!
• Ask for term of payments you comfortable with, and negotiate on it
• Whenever possible, signing a contract or an agreement ALWAYS a good business practice

Well, I still haven’t buy any sites/blogs, but I’ve bid on some, and pretty close in sealing some deals. I’ll keep you posted on this.

Ivan Widjaya
Web property newbie

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For a noobpreneur like me, the climbing of Alexa Rank is like heaven… even considering that ‘million’ describes where you are in the rank :D

I jump from 13 million-something to 3 million-something for 3 months period, and this week average is 700 thousand-something. Nothing to brag about, but a climb is a climb!

Why Alexa Rank is important to me? It’s a valuable indicator how good my content is to attract visitors and readers.

Proud as a father whose son wins a competition, I am confident that this blog will reach new heights fast - thanks to you, my valued blog readers!

See Noobpreneur.com Alexa traffic detail.

Ivan Widjaya
Alexa Rank chaser

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Noobpreneur.com Blog Redesign is on the Way

Do you have a business or tech related blog?

It’s time for you to consider RevResponse. Learning about the potential of RevResponse made me abandoned my Google Adsense, AdBrite and Bidvertiser accounts - If you visit my blog often, you might already saw the changes.

What is RevResponse?

RevResponse is an ads company that provides tools for website and blog owners to generate revenue by offering free magazine subscriptions and document downloads.

RevResponse is a subsidiary company of Netline, a notable Internet Marketing company, established in early 2008. RevResponse handles tools for website and blog owners to generate revenue from TradePub, another Netline subsidiary that offer the free magazines and downloads.

What will RevResponse benefit my blog and I?

Unlike of Google Adsense and other typical ads’ use of clickable links that will deliver you revenues in term of PPC (pay per click), RevResponse will benefit you by offering you a commission on every qualified subscription or download request - including requests from your international audience.

The good part is, RevResponse guarantees you a $1.50 minimum on every qualified subscription or request from your blog. They claim that it’s uncommon for a publisher to earn the bare minimum and you should expect to earn substantially more.

The best part is, RevResponse offers you two revenue streams - commisions from subscriptions/requests and from new publisher sign-ups through your account. Moreover, RevResponse allows you to monetize email newsletters, 3rd party lists, blogs, RSS feeds, and your websites - one account handles all.

You can actually run RevResponse alongside Google Adsense - So if you decided to run both ad programs, you have all the freedom to do so!

I recommend you RevResponse

To me, RevResponse is a company offering semi-affiliate marketing solution for its publishers - RevResponse displays ads like PPC ads (those of Google Adsense, AdBrite, and Bidvertiser), but converts like affiliate programs (you receive commission for each closed sales.) This is my main reason to left my Google Adsense, AdBrite and Bidvertiser for RevResponse.

Joining RevResponse is a unique opportunity to convert your traffic into revenue stream, for several reasons:

1. PPC ads are famous for their poor conversion rates - Unless you have humongous amount of visitors to your site, you are less likely to make any considerable amount of money out of this type of program.
2. RevResponse converts visitors like affiliate programs, that typically have higher rates of conversion - and usually more amount of money per conversion - than PPC ads.
3. You are offering FREE business and tech magazine subscriptions and document downloads - Everything FREE is converting more of your visitors into subscribers, and even new ad publishers, which means more revenue for your blog.
4. By joining, you are becoming a member of a group of publishers that utilising and offering new kind of ads and products - unique means fresh approach to your visitors. Fresh = more conversion.

I highly recommend you to sign-up with RevResponse, to start monetizing your blog better.

But before, be sure you know what you’re offering to your readers by browsing on RevResponse magazines and documents list and then decide whether they are the right products for your blog and blog readers or not.

Ivan Widjaya
Offering free stuffs

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