Featured Post
The Road to Riches is indeed the road less traveled. That explains why only a small percentage of the population successfully reached their destination- that of amassing immense wealth and fortune. But for us who are willing to walk that path towards financial prosperity, which road are we going to take?
There are several routes that a person can take to become rich. Some may involve confusing roads and obstacles that would delay our travel. Some are very tempting short-cuts that could speed up our journey to riches, but at the expense of many things in our lives. However, becoming rich requires dedication and commitment. It involves a lot of factors- a mix of determination, patience, financial intellect and of course, an ounce of good luck.
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Michael Jackson’s Last Will
It appears Michael Jackson back at 2002 drafted his last will which divides the singer’s estate among his mother, three children and to one one or more charities. One or two other earlier wills have emerged but the latest is the 2002 which Jackson’s lawyer has yet to submit to the Los Angeles Superior Court.
You can read the drafted copy of his last will here.
His financial situation doesn’t look clear and how his properties will be divided. Micheal Jackson lavish lifestyle has left him broke, he was planning on a comeback tour in Europe next year to pay off some of his debts. Rumor report that his in debt of almost $400M. With his death though from the surge of fans buying his albums he can become more richer than when he was alive.
Bernard Madoff sentenced to 150 years
Bernard Madoff the biggest con artist in the history who swindled billions of dollars from investors from his Ponzi Scheme got sentenced to 150 years in Prison.
I was able to catch the TV the episode “Ripped Off: Madoff and the Scamming of America” last month. And from financial analysts view it was impossible to keep a steady interest rate returns regardless of the state of the economy. As early as 10 years ago they were raising the questions about Madoff company and claiming it is a scam but they never gave it much attention. It wasn’t only when Madoff himself confessed it is a Ponzi scheme that people saw the truth. He likely has connections deep in the SEC who benefited from his scheme.
Madoff knew he couldn’t stop the scheme for the money involved was too big, he might have planned to run the Ponzi scheme till the day he dies, but the scheme got exposed early. His currently 71 years old, add the jail term, he’ll be 221 yrs old. Do you feel the term vindicates all the lives he has ruined with his scam. He might not even last a decade more.
Unique Idea to Cash
I came up with new categories Millionaire Links and Billionaire Links featuring millionaires and billionaires and their story as source for inspirations.
This is my first post under the millionaire’s link.
This is not new but this ranks among my favorites for inspiration. This is about having a unique idea and making money out of it. Back then 2005 Alex Tew was only 21 years old and came up with idea to sell adspace or advertisement on his website to finance his college tuition. Sell it by the pixel for $10 per pixel. 1000000 pixels and you get $1,000,000, thus born “The Million Dollar Homepage” . Sounds like an absurd idea but Alex Tew managed to pull it off, he got more than just college tuition, he sold out all the pixels and became an instant millionaire.
Now there are lots of copycats and spin-offs but this was the original. If you come up with a great web idea you can be a millionaire in the internet.
The Business Plan Basics
So you have this great business idea and you want to go into business immediately, don’t jump into the water just yet, consider making a plan first.
I’m not an expert but I found this very basic and true. Frequently overlooked but very important when starting a business is creating your business plan. At first, it sounds very technical, but it’s your own business plan, you don’t need to make it technical. You can do it by yourself.
Here are the steps
- Come up with your own business name, it should be unique and descriptive of your type of business. As for me, I came up with something that is related to web marketing and services. Then under your business name, you can have different related brands.
- Once you have a business name, write the business plan. With a good descriptive business name, you can pretty much loosely write your mission statement, business summary, your strengths, what makes you unique, your goals and target. It can be drafted and can be finalized and put into more details later.
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Next is feasibility planning, start by asking these questions.
- Is there a demand for your product or services?
- Are there any competitions?
- What is your target audience?
- How will you be able to reach your audience either to advertising, networking, word of mouth, viral marketing etc.
With these common questions you can factor in all possible scenarios and how to approach them, this step is critical as it can determine the success of your business.
- Financial planning, how much is your current investment, with the feasibility study you can estimate how much investment will go to your products, services and equipments and part of a startup business is advertising. Plan your budget for the entire year and not just for the initial start. Some pour in all their investments in the start and rely on the market to carry them to the next month or year.
With a good laid out business plan and market study you will see the it is easier to foresee how the business will fare. When you are ready you can execute the business plan and finally open for business.
Earning a living from the internet
Well, I’ve been making a living in the internet using my skills as a freelance web designer and developer. I’ve been designing and developing websites now for several years. I started out doing graphic designs and then shifted to web designs, now into web development. Sort of where the income is higher I follow the flow. People hire me for my services and I provide my services on contractual basis.
One of the perks of it is I get to do work at home and get paid more than being employed. Downside is I have to pay manually my own tax and government services like SSS and PAG-IBIG, no HR like when employed on a company who handles this for you.
Before I know alot of people who wants to start working at home but don’t have the skills do it, but things have changed since blogging has become a medium of expression in the internet. I started blogging because I wanted to improve is my skills in writing.
Writing skills is one of those skills once you learn it you never forget and it can always still be improved and honed. Learning how to write is easier than learning a new programming language. I know several people who earns big from blogging, some even bigger than what I earn for a living building websites. Some treat the income from blogging as one of the perk from what they do best which is to write. However when their monthly earnings surpasses their wage as an employee they quit their job and become a full time blogger. A lot of people are doing it but there is always the fear of uncertainty. When I quit my job and became a freelance developer I had those uncertainty too. But now I don’t feel any fear.
Earlier I was treating blogging as a passive income, you write one good article and with good traffic you never know how much you are going to earn. Now I’m aiming to make it my business, there is always vacancy to earning more and making a living from the internet.
