Archives for June 2009

So, the much-hyped fibre optic cables are finally here! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for them for years… Why? The cables are very likely to change the way the internet is accessed and used in Kenya. The main benefits are going to, eventually, be cheaper and faster access to the internet. This probably means that:

1. There is going to be a sharp increase in the number of people who access the internet
2. There exists a big HUGE opportunity to make money online in Kenya and this opportunity shall increase as the number of internet users increases.

So, the big question (apart from reading Like Chapaa regularly – subscribe for free if you haven’t yet) is: how do you make money online? There exists big opportunity, but how do we take advantage of it? What can you do to make money online?

How To Find Profitable Business Models
When thinking of starting a business, any business, the part where most people struggle is the conceptualization of the business model. They don’t know what kind of business to start, what market to target, where the revenues are going to come from and so on. The same applies for web businesses, perhaps even more so. People often do not know what sites to create, or how they are actually going to earn money.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a place where you can go to and study, in detail, successfully employed web business models? Is there any place where you can go to to generate web business ideas?

Yes there is, and it is: www.flippa.com

Flippa is a place where people buy and sell websites. The site has had a lifetime total of USD 24 million in sales so a lot of business gets done there! When you visit the site you will find lots of sites for sale. Obviously, some of them are not worth your time so you need a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. You can do it in two ways: click on “just sold” or “browse all listings“.

Clicking on “just sold” will let you view websites that people actually bought. These sites are obviously built on sound web business models as they would not have been bought otherwise. You can click on each site sold to learn more about it and, possibly, why the purchaser paid for and bought it.

Clicking on “browse all listings” is even better. It lets you see a long list of sites up for sale but not yet sold. The thing to do is to browse through the list and check on the number of bids. If people have actually placed a bid on a particular website, it means that they are prepared to buy it. This probably means that the website in question is built on a good and workable web business model. You can click on each listing to learn more about the website.

Now, this is where things get interesting. Since people genuinely want to sell those websites, they will give all sorts of information about them, including details of how they built them, where they get traffic from, where their revenues come from and so on. Better yet, you can ask questions about specific points and the seller will gladly respond to them. Think of the possibilities: you can learn the ins and outs of a web business and then just duplicate it elsewhere.

Just today, I learnt that you can actually be paid for offering free magazines to your website’s visitors. I sincerely do not know anywhere else where you can learn so much detail about existing businesses for free. It’s a goldmine.

I haven’t even touched on the very hot prospects of buying a web business and running it yourself, or improving it and selling it for HUGE profits. Therefore, stay tuned to this site…subscribe to receive free email updates. Or by RSS.

Have a question? Don’t hesitate to ask!