Find A Small Problem, Provide A Simple Solution

December 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

Here’s the story of a young guy in Mexico who started his own small business immediately after college and has now moved from his bedroom to his own office, bought furniture, computers and has a substantial amount saved up.

He studied mechanical engineering in uni and after graduating, he decided to start a small business since he had some experience building websites. He noticed that small business owners wanted to do online marketing but they had little idea of how to do it. So he started offering a very simple service of charging companies to handle their Google Adsense (Google’s advertising product). In as little as 4 months, he had achieved impressive sales.

Sounds nice and simple, eh? That’s the moral of the story. Sometimes we try to think up these elegant and complex business ideas when all we need to do is find a small problem and provide a simple solution.

Come on, this is something you can do, right now. What are you waiting for?

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Make Money

Elance, oDesk, and Making Money Online

November 29, 2011 By 5 Comments

The last time you heard from me, I had made almost half a million freelancing, and was hanging up my keyboard in exchange for a little honest work. The work was fulfilling and fun, but I’ve always been bad at marketting, and referrals will only get you so far. When I gave up the online work, I was lucky. I got a job at a digital ad agency, doing pretty much the same stuff as freelancing, except I had to sit in an office, and I get medical benefits. They still let me wear jeans every day, and they have sparkly red floors and attic-style roofing, so it’s a really cool deal.

The past few months have been tricky though. Between the dollar falling and the baby growing, finances just aren’t stretching as far as they should, so I reconsidered finding a side hustle. I didn’t want it to be writing work, since I already write during my 9 to 5 [or whatever time the briefs are complete, which sometimes means 9.00 a.m. three days later.] I toyed with the idea of farming, since we kept commercial chicken when we were little. I bumped into some farming info in the days after, and I figured it must be a sign. But to be a farmer, you need, you know, a farm, and that needs money.

What followed was a few days of daydreaming and restlessness. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I decided to log on to Elance and see what was going on. I wanted to check my password and see if my account was still active. Well … it was … and everything was right the way I left it, so yay! I looked up some of my old Elance clients, and was glad to see they still wanted to work with me. One even recommended me to his wife, who has become one more happy client. She gives me work via oDesk, though it took me a while to remember that password and figure out how it worked. I opened my oDesk account in 2008, but I haven’t used it since.

So what has changed since I last worked freelance? Not much. The dollar went up and down again, and Paypal still doesn’t allow withdrawals in Kenya, except for The Kenya Red Cross Society. There are still a lot of middle-men trying to offer that service, but I prefer to get my payments via Payoneer or have a wire transfer straight to my bank. There’s a charge for it, but it’s also a convenient way to keep track of all the money coming in from side work. The gigs are still pretty small, paying between $1 and $5 per article, and I spend 3 or 4 hours a day working on them, which means I’m retraining my body to function on four hours asleep. Anyone who knows me appreciates what a mammoth task that is, but sometimes you do what you have to.

I was very hesitant about getting into freelancing again. I get home from my day job at 8 or 9 p.m. and after a day that long, it seemed unreasonable to sit at a computer for anything but pleasure. But I’ve been having conversations with my friends, the kind where they want a change in their lives but they’re not willing to make any effort, and I realized I was doing the same thing myself. I am where I am because I’m not pushing myself hard enough, and I needed to change that, so I did.

I get a lot of emails asking how to succeed in online work, how to get jobs, how to get paid. In the two or so years that I’ve worked online, I’ve made $1,400, and I know of Kenyans who have made a lot more using the very same avenues that I do. There’s no secret behind it. You just log on and keep trying till you get it right. It’s not as easy as it looks, but it’s definitely worth it.

Put in the same effort in your work, whether you’re working for $1 or $500. That’s how you build a name for yourself, that’s how you get recommended to others, and that’s how every time you walk away, you come back and find work waiting for you. That, and effective marketting, which I’m yet to figure out, but I’ll get there, someday ;-)

Crystal Ading’ is a professional author, editor, rock lover and mother. Her work is available through www.threeceebee.com.

Filed Under: Make Money, Online Jobs

Six questions for analyzing a website

November 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Seth Godin brings us this gem of an article that is very useful when you want to analyse whether a website is a good investment.

It’s tempting to believe that any website can become a perpetual motion machine of profit. But before you start one, invest in one or go to work for one, a few things to ask:

  1. What’s the revenue per visit? (RPM). For every thousand visitors, how much money does the site make (in ads or sales)?
  2. What’s the cost of getting a visit? Does the site use PR or online ads or affiliate deals to get traffic? If so, what’s the yield?
  3. Is there a viral co-efficient? Existing visitors can lead to new visitors as a result of word of mouth or the network effect. How many new visitors does each existing user bring in? (Hint: it’s less than 1. If it were more than 1, then every person on the planet would be a user soon.) This number rarely stays steady. For example, at the beginning, Twitter’s co-efficient was tiny. Then it scaled to be one of the largest ever (Oprah!) and now has started to come back down to Earth.
  4. What’s the cost of a visitor? Does the site need to add customer service or servers or other expenses as it scales?
  5. Are there members/users? There’s a big difference between drive-by visits and registered users. Do these members pay a fee, show up more often, have something to lose by switching?
  6. What’s the permission base and how is it changing? The only asset that can be reliably built and measured online is still permission. Attention is scarce, and permission is the privilege to deliver anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them. Permission is easy to measure and hard to grow.

Do the math on successful companies online and compare it to those that are struggling and these six metrics will help you understand the difference. For example, if the RPM is less than the cost of getting a new visitor, you’ve got trouble. If the site is relying on fads and occasional PR but isn’t building a permission base, that’s trouble too.

The good news is that each of them can be changed if you’re alert and willing to do surgery on the business model and structure of the site.

The ideal structure is a business that’s a platform, not merely a place to stop by. Once people move in and become members, they’re hesitant to leave, they share permission over time, they tell their friends, their RPM goes up and the cost of acquiring and hosting members goes down. The real question is: are you on that path?

Interesting in investing in websites? If you want to get into this but have no idea how to search for, value, evaluate and manage a website, give us a call. We’ll work something out.

Filed Under: Make Money

Do You Know About This Amazing Investment Opportunity?

November 25, 2011 By 6 Comments

In this economy, where do you invest your money? What gives the best returns? We still believe that one of the best, least-known investment opportunities is investing in websites.

In fact, over the last few months, we have been quietly purchasing websites both for ourselves and some clients. Why do we think this represents a good investment? Here’s a quote from an earlier article:

A little-known way of making money online is that of investing in virtual real estate i.e. buying websites.

I know you are conversant with the idea of buying land or houses so I will use that as an example to make a point. If you buy a house at Kshs 5 million and then rent it out, the monthly rent that you can charge is usually 1% of the buying price (this sometimes varies but it is the average). Therefore, the expected rent of a house worth 5 million would be Kshs 50,000 a month or Kshs 600,000 a year. To get back your 5 million investment, it would take 8.3 years. This is considered a good investment.

A better one would be to buy a small business. The average rate of return on a small business is about 20% – i.e. if you buy a business at 5 million, you should expect to make 1 million a year. This means that it would take you 5 years to get back your investment.

What about buying a website? The strange thing is that the value of a website is usually only about 12 – 24 times its money income. That is, if a website makes Kshs 10,000/- a month, the selling price should be a maximum of 240,000/-. This means that it only takes you two years to get back your initial investment.

Sounds like a good investment to you? (Read More)

Think about that. If you spend Kshs 5,000,000 on a website you should expect to make up to Kshs 500,000 every month. And, guess what? Some types of websites require NO input from you. Can you imagine making a passive 500k every month? I don’t know what to say – I simply cannot think of a better investment in this economy! Can you?

Let me share with you a snapshot of recently sold websites to further drive the point home:

Recently sold websites

Recently sold websites

From the above, the average cost of purchasing a website is about 10.7 times its expected monthly revenues.

This means that if a website makes $100 (about Kshs 10,000 currently) every month, then its expected purchase price would be $1,070 (about Kshs 100,000 currently).

A website that cost you $1,070 (about Kshs 100,000 currently) will earn $1,200 (about Kshs 120,000 currently) in one year.

Sijui if this makes any sense to you. Personally, though, at Nickel Pro we have been aggressively investing in websites to the point where now a significant part of our revenues is on “autopilot” (it comes whether we work or not). Hakuna pesa tamu kama hiyo, let me tell you! :)

So, as you are thinking of where to invest your money. Spare a thought for websites. In my opinion it is one of the best investments out there. If you want to get into this but have no idea how to search for, value, evaluate and manage a website, give us a call. We’ll work something out.

Cheers!

Filed Under: Make Money

If you want to get rich, stop joking around

November 17, 2011 By 1 Comment

This is an article adapted from If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker.

99% of people you interact with in life are jokers. You’re used to joker behavior.

We’re all middle class. That sucks. We should be wealthy. But to be wealthy, we need to NOT BE JOKERS.

What’s a joker? A joker is someone who says they’re going to do something, and then doesn’t. A joker always has excuses. “Oh well, I tried…” -> No, I don’t care that you tried. Did you do it or not?

DID YOU DO WHAT YOU SAID YOU’D DO OR NOT?

If not, you’re a joker.

“We will find a way. Or make one.” – Hannibal Barca, 247 BC – 182 BC

That’s my favorite quote. Hannibal is one of my greatest heroes.

He almost conquered Rome. He could have, actually, if he’d been willing to have all his men die to do so, but he loved his men too much so he didn’t do it. Think about that! The man almost conquered Rome!

There’s so many stories of him doing the impossible. Breaking out of ambushes, setting crazy fires, marching elephants through the Alps to invade the Italian Peninsula… dude, he took ELEPHANTS from Africa and MARCHED THEM THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS INTO ROME.

The Romans thought Hannibal had the FORCES OF HELL ON HIS SIDE. Why? Because of that quote: “We will find a way. Or make one.”

Look. When something doesn’t get done, there’s always a good reason. Yeah, you’ve got your job. Or you’ve got to go some class. Or the server crashed. Or whatever!

I don’t care. No one does. You need to get your part done. FIND A WAY. OR MAKE ONE.

Filed Under: Make Money

An Opportunity to Make Money as a Developer in Kenya

November 13, 2011 By 6 Comments

I’m writing this blog post cuddled up in a tent in Naivasha’s Crayfish Camp while attending the 2011 Kenya WordCamp.

WordCamp Kenya is a conference about the world’s most popular blogging software WordPress. Developers, designers and users will come together for talks and workshops related to WordPress and to publishing on the web, and to network.

WordPress, of course, is the rockstar of online web publishing. It is so good that it is used to power 14.7% of the top one million world’s biggest websites. In the USA, WordPress has been used to create and manage 22% of all new websites in the year 2011. It is used in 8% of the websites on the entire web. Clearly, WordPress is the one of the biggest and most widely used CMS.

I’m here primarily because I am one of the speakers at this conference. I had an interesting presentation on DukaPress yesterday. If you are not attending this event, well, pole kwako.

I would say the majority of the people who made it are bloggers from Kenya – very prominent Kenyan bloggers. It has been wonderful meeting some of the people I look up to. It is very good to see that Kenya has a very strong and thriving blogosphere.

However, I am disappointed in that I found that the number of WordPress developers here is relatively small. In fact, my observation is that in Kenya, generally, WordPress developers are few and far between. For example at DukaPress last year we wanted to hire a number of WordPress developers but could not find more than one or two who actually had experience with WordPress from all those who applied for the jobs.

I feel that this represents a massive opportunity for developers in Kenya. WordPress is HUGE. In fact, on almost all of the “freelancer” websites (like freelancer.com, guru.com, elance.com etc) the vast majority of all programming/web development jobs are related to WordPress. If as a developer you know how to work well with WordPress, you can easily make money online, offline or both. Just look at what our small team has been able to do with DukaPress.

Think about it. Can you take advantage of this opportunity?

PS: You can get more information on WordCamp Kenya here. You can follow the event live on Twitter by following @WordCampKE or #WCKE which is the official hashtag.

Filed Under: Make Money

What is The Future of Forex Trading in Kenya?

November 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Retail Forex trading is no doubt a booming business in Kenya as people search for several investment alternatives. It is currently estimated that the global forex market could be exchanging over $4 trillion dollars every single day and the market is still growing. Kenyans are moving out of the conventional investment options of just buying shares and there is a growing number who have now invested in forex. There is some information that the Kenyan government is planning to start an exchange centre in Nairobi and the question we need to be asking ourselves is what is the future of forex market in Kenya? Are there some good investment opportunities for Kenyans or just but another opportunity that will see thousands of Kenyans lose money?

Let us reflect on what happened when the stock market was ‘opened’ or let us say, people got to know for sure that they can invest in stocks. First there were those who were a little bit skeptical about the whole scenario. This was a time when the president Kibaki government was gaining roots and few people could not trust the government promises. The fears that people had due to the former regime were with them. The IPO for KenGen came and there was a massive 300% over subscription. Those who were lucky to be allocated shares by this time made some good money. Those who never knew what an IPO is got an opportunity not only to trade in the stock market but also to sit and wait for the next IPO. The next major IPO from the most profitable company in east Africa safaricom came. People sold their cows, took bank loans and withdrew their savings in order to get some safaricom shares. They even sold shares they held with other companies, destabilizing the Nairobi stock exchange with the result being that several listed company shares were undervalued and the big players in the market went fishing for them.

The result for many was a pure disaster. Besides paying the bank for the loans they took, they also had to pay interest on the loan, deal with the issue of refund (and before you get the refund, you are still paying interest on your loan), plus the major negative fact that the shares never gave people the returns they were expecting. The other day I watched a heated debate on parliament with members of parliament arguing why there is MTN network in Kenya. I may assume that maybe the problem is not the MTN network in Kenya but what will the future of safaricom shares be when another major competitor penetrates the market ? Brokers who were selling the shares succeeded in giving the true image of safaricom future but I think (this is my opinion), they did not explain the arithmetic part of the shares. The result, people pegged their investment decisions on hopes but not on the reality.

Why am I talking about safaricom shares in an article about forex ? It’s simply because there is a very high likelihood that what happened to the safaricom IPO may repeat itself when the government does move ahead and establish the forex exchange centre here in Kenya. At this time, forex trading will be in the news, journalist will dissect the information and present the great investment stories such as the current forex billionaires who only started with small amounts of money. They will instill nothing but hope and the government will be praised for the job well done. People will be so ‘grateful’ because they will have finally secured an investment opportunity to “solve” their problems.

BUT will this be the situation ? Most people do mass following. They do not take time to study their investment, they follow others. A good number of people will by this time have heard about forex trading but probably doubted but now that the exchange centre is here and having been brought by the government, they will most likely believe, and repeat the same investment mistake; rush into the forex market without clearly understanding the market. I may assume people will take loans, sell their cows and others assets again, pump the money into the forex market but because the forex market happens to be highly volatile, the new beginners will most likely lose everything. The result is that they will go back to the journalist complaining of what is happening, write bad comments about the forex brokers they are using, tell everyone not to invest in forex, ….but the actual problem would be, they never knew what they were doing in the first place. If so many people lose, which is highly likely because I doubt if people will get training on how to trade forex before trading, the government maybe forced to come up with some measures to protect people from losing more money. Basically, you might hear of such regulations as one must be having a certain minimum amount of capital (in millions, which will block out several people and eliminate the use of high leverage) to invest in forex while at the moment you can open a forex account with as little as $25. The brokers operating in country may be required not to offer high leverage (not more than 1:50) like it is the case now in USA.

What is the way forward ? Only those people who adequately train in forex eventually make it. The rest juts lose their money. Kenyans should take the advantages being offered by the forex market but do so in such a manner that our hard earned money is not lost but rather gain more capital which we bring back into the country. There are different places where one can traine and www.kenyaforexanswers.com is a Kenyan site offering you free lessons on forex trading. You need to learn the dynamics of the market before you can benefit from this mega market. Should you wish to get more information on forex or one on one training, you can call me on 0727 29 29 60. My name is Patrick and I am a full time forex trader. I will be glad to help you out and see you succeed.

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