Some of the New Indian Express readers have asked me whether an online entrepreneur can aspire to earn only a few thousand rupees from the Internet. As I write only about people that earn less than Rs.25,000 a month from online businesses and activities, they have raised this question.
An online business is just like an offline business. Even though there are millions of successful offline business persons, only a few of them have become millionaires. The case of the Internet is exactly the same.
Through the Internet, with a small investment, you can reach the entire world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. An offline business does not offer this advantage to individuals like you and me. So, all hard working, resourceful individuals have exactly the same opportunities and equal chances of making it big on the world wide web.
I will tell you about a few Internet entrepreneurs that made it big so that you can set your goals sky high. These people had humble beginnings. They are individuals. They worked from home until they became millionaires.
Corey Rudl started his first online business in 1994 with just $25 in start-up capital. He successfully turned that small investment into a multi-million-dollar business by effectively pioneering results-driven Internet marketing strategies. When he started out, Corey began selling an ebook called 'Car Secrets Revealed.' It covered topics dealing with saving money on your car costs. In the first year, at the age of 24 with an investment of Rs.1,000, he earned Rs.60,00,000! With that money, he started his company 'Internet Marketing Center' and published several informational products and software programs that brought him crores of rupees. His website address is: http://MarketingTips.com/
When Jeremy Schoemaker first started out, he was unemployed and had a debt of Rs.10 lakhs. He tried his hands on several things from working as a washing machine salesman to working as a system administrator. He failed in all these jobs. Finally he decided to take up self-employment and do something on the Internet. His first project on the eBay made him richer by Rs.10 lakhs. With that money he started many websites on different topics. His niche is mobile phones. He earns more than Rs.1 crore every month and still works from home. His website address is http://ShoeMoney.com/.
Darren Rowse is 32 year old Australian living in Melbourne. He works from home for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. His tools of trade are a computer and his brain. He tried to earn a living from blogging but made a fortune. Back in 2002. Darren stumbled upon an article about 'Blogging'. Within 24 hours of reading the article, he had started his own Blog - a personal blog where he has explored issues of Pop Culture, Spirituality and Blogging ever since. He learnt so much about blogging that he has since started 16 other sites on a range of topics that include digital photography, Athens Olympics, printers and laptops. He earns more than Rs.5 lakhs a month. His website address is http://problogger.net/.
Dr. Evoy is a physician who formerly taught and practiced emergency medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of a series of widely-acclaimed 'Make Your .. Sell' e-commerce ebooks and courses, which have empowered hundreds-of-thousands of people and small businesses around the world to succeed on the Web. In the beginning he worked from home and started his website http://SiteSell.com/. In less than eight years, he has sold his products to 100000+ customers. During this period, he has managed to win 300000+ newsletter subscribers. This means he is making more than Rs.10 crores every year.
Danny Sullivan is a web designer. Back at the end of 1995, one of his clients complained to Danny that he couldn't find his site in a search engine. He wanted to know why. Like many web designers, Danny assumed that you created a site, submitted it to the search engines, and eventually all your pages would be listed. But this approach never worked. So, he undertook a study to get the answers he wanted. Within a few weeks, he learned many things. Then he placed the results of his study online. He also compiled a comprehensive chart of major search engine features. It was an instant hit and his website http://SearchEngineWatch.com/ began to march ahead. In 1997, a big company bought his website for a few crores of rupees and still pays him well to maintain the website.
I know hundreds of big online success stories. However, I wish to write about your success story in this column