Two housewives with average skills are earning more than Rs.20,000 a month from a home based business, while you are watching serials and movies on the Television.
It was a late hot afternoon in April. I was sitting under a big tree in Santosa Island in Singapore. Though I had been to Singapore several times, that was the first time I visited the Island. When I reached the gates of the Musical Fountain, I was told that the colorful water action would take place at 6 pm after sunset. It was only 5 pm then. So, I decided to sit near the fountain and count the birds overhead. Early birds do not always win.
I was not the only one to get toasted in the hot sun. Two women, both in their mid-twenties, took shelter under MY tree. I did not pay attention to their discussion and was busy with my bird counting. However, when I heard the magic words Internet and money, my blood ran quicker. I began to listen to their discussion - of course, without their knowledge.
I realized that they were self-employed Indian women and earned money working from home. I made friends with them and joined their discussion. Priya was a BA graduate and Amirta was a BSc graduate.
"What business do you exactly do on the Internet?" I asked them. "We help people form companies in America," Priya replied. "That's interesting. Neither of you have knowledge in law. How do you do it?" I asked them.
"Thanks to Internet, it has become easier for business persons to do business worldwide. For such people, having their own registered company in the United States has many advantages. Delaware, a state in the United States, is famous for its friendly procedures towards company incorporation," Amirta said and Priya continued, "The company owner doesn't have to live in Delaware to incorporate a company in Delaware. Incorporation can be done online for a low price. This means anyone can have one's own company in the USA for peanuts and enjoy all the benefits and prestige of having a company in America, without leaving one's room. Many countries have simple corporate law on international corporations. So, people from these countries incorporate corporations in Delaware. These people actively search websites that give them useful information about international Delaware corporations."
"How do you make money?" I asked them. "There are hundreds of incorporation agents and attorneys that advertise their services all over the world. As there is a stiff competition among them, they offer generous referral commission to anyone who helps them find clients. This gives us an excellent income opportunity," Amirta said.
"Everything makes sense now," I said. "We started a website. We researched the worldwide web for relevant information. We wrote useful articles on Delaware incorporation. We submitted our website to search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Then we became affiliates for a few reputed registered agents," Priya said.
"Becoming an affiliate is easy. You need to submit a simple online application. It is free to join. You will be given a small piece of code that you must place on your webpage or blog. When someone uses the affiliate link, visits the registered agent's website, and incorporates a company, you get referral fees from the agent. Our agents pay $125 (Rs. 5,000) for each referral," said Priya.
"You don't have to sell goods or support customers. All you have to do is to bring visitors to your website and send them to Delaware incorporation agent's website. If you have good content, people will visit your website happily," said Amirta.
"How much do you earn?" I asked them. "When we started three years ago, we did not get any income for the first five months, even though we had good traffic to our website. Then we realized that we were targeting wrong market - Indian market. There are many rules and regulations that prohibit Indians from forming overseas companies. So, we started to target European countries, Australia and America. Within a week, we got our first customer and we earned Rs.5,000. We used that money to promote our website and our income grew. Now, we earn more than $1,000 (Rs.50,000) a month," said Priya.
"In the next few months we earned a total amount of Rs.700,000. I got married to an engineer in Singapore and she to a doctor in Malaysia. Only if you are from a middle class family, you will understand the role played by Rs.700,000 in our marriages. We still maintain our partnership," said Amirta.
"Recently we have started a new website and we hope to multiply our income before the end of this year," said Priya. "That's wonderful. What's your business plan?" I asked them. "We will tell you about it when we have developed our website and achieved our goals. If we tell you now, you will immediately write about it in the newspaper and create unnecessary competition," Amirta replied with a smile.
Then the gates of the money fountain - oops - the music fountain opened.