How To Make Money Online – For Absolute Beginners

February 25, 2011 by 6 Comments

When we set up this website, one of our primary goals was to teach people what we knew about making money online. This continues to be our goal – we would love to teach as many of our fellow Kenyans as possible. Over the years (its now been tow years!), by and large, we have achieved this goal. We’ve helped grow many business and shared our thoughts and ideas with even more.

However, we feel that even this is not enough. We have not been able to adequately address the needs of a person who is very new to the whole idea of earning online. What is the easiest way to start? How do you start? What do you do? Where do you go? We would love to answer these questions for everyone. we would love even more to take every one of these people by the hand and show them what to do, and how.

Alas, things have changed since the time when we started this website. We now get mountains of email daily and it is just too much work to be able to address everyone individually. And as you are aware, our previous efforts largely failed. Yes, I am talking about Biashara 30.

But we have a plan!
We have been secretly developing a resource – you may even call it an online course – that is targeted at absolute beginners. The aim of this resource would be to act as something of guide that will teach what we feel is the easiest and fastest way to make money online if you are a beginner. Sounds interesting? Here is what it will cover:

First, I must say that we believe the easiest and fastest way for absolute beginners to make a significant amount of money online is to get an “online job”. This is what will be the focal point of the guide, specifically:

  1. Getting Started : Understanding the freelance world – international business hours, worldwide clients, international currencies, language problems, range of clients (professional and personal), working at home (separating your home and work lives)…
  2. Preparation for working online: Study yourself, your abilities, what you will/can and won’t/can’t do (working hours/days, combining skills, price range). Are you more specialised in languages, programming, graphics, marketing, media… Several sectors or specialised. Qualifications, experience, references… Skills requested online – a few examples of sectors.
  3. Your Presentation: Photo, logo, profile, message presentation, website…How to write, what to write (and what not to write!)
  4. Where to work
  5. Employer relations: Clarity, efficiency and cordiality (explaining relations and approach, the employer’s point of view)
  6. Getting paid : Payment (online payment methods, payment through freelancer websites and withdrawals)
  7. Protection and Security: Escrow, feedback, work samples, privacy policy
  8. Copyright issues
  9. Etc

Why did we chose for this guide to be about getting an online job? If you go any site that deals with only jobs – freelancer.com, or guru.com, or elance.com, or anything else – then you will find that these sites are vibrant markets and that people make significant amounts of money through them. We believe that when you are getting started, making money through such sites is the easiest way that you can go. It also opens your eyes to see what can be done online and you will be able to later transition to doing something else.

What do you think? Interested? Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you can up to date on developments regarding this project.

Filed Under: Biashara 30, Internet Culture, Make Money

Biashara 30 Confessions II

October 4, 2010 by 29 Comments

Does anyone else like that Usher song, Confessions II? Well, I love it! And, keeping with the spirit of that song, here are our Biashara 30 (Season 2) confessions….

What is Biashara 30?
Biashara30 is a premium club meant for people interested in making money online. People who join Biashara30 will learn everything we know about making money online and, to complete the program, will be required to set up an internet business either as a group project or alone. A very important part of Biashara30 is ensuring that everyone who participates earns online before the end of the program. At every step, we will be on hand to guide and advise the members of Biashara30.

Some Background Info
At the beginning of this year, we accepted about 20 people into the second season of Biashara 30. We received well over 150 applications to the program and decided to pick 20 or so of what we felt were the best presented applications.

And, honestly, the people of Biashara 30 Season 2 were pretty amazing. At the beginning of the program, I felt very confident that we’d have lots of fun and that someone (lots of someones) would make some money!

Sad Happenings
Sadly, things did not turn out the way I had hoped. Slowly, the whole thing degenerated into the oblivion of inactivity. Biashara 30 Season 2 was not successful. Why?

  1. At the start of the program, myself and wham (we run Like Chapaa and Biashara 30) unfortunately got a really huge job that we just could not pass up. This meant that we could not participate as directly as we wished we could.
  2. A good number of the Biashara 30 Season 2 participants were simply inactive. It beats me why you would take the time and energy to apply and then never even show up.
  3. With all due respect to all Biashara 30 Season 2 participants, I would say that in general I felt a lack of sufficient focus and sense of purpose. I am willing to say that this was in part our fault in that we suddenly did not have enough time to spend on the program. I feel that, ultimately, the buck stops with you if you want to earn more money online or elsewhere.
  4. I do not know how to put this last point respectfully. I apologise if anyone feels badly for this. I had various one-on-one chats with the Biashara 30 Season 2 participants and while some of them were simply unimaginably amazing, some were less amazing than others. Let me give an example, one participant wanted an online shop, of sorts, and we helped that participant get a domain name and gave that participant free webhosting and even helped set up the website for that participant. These are things we charge for daily but they are available free for B30 guys and gals. I would have imagined that giving so generously that the participant would have gone on to do great things with the new shop. But no, the participant always came back to us in a situation which turned out to be sort of us doing all the work for the participant. I don’t appreciate laziness, and B30 will never spoonfeed anyone.

Some Thoughts

  1. We have to rethink the whole approach to B30. It is easy to sit back and blame the participants for two failed attempts but I realise that this is more likely an indicator that something is fundamentally wrong with how we handle the program. We have to find a better easier and more efficient way of transferring knowledge from us into other people.
  2. It seems to me that there is something of a general attitude problem in our great country. People very often have grand ideas and the skills to match them but they end up doing nothing at all with that. It almost feels like people (especially those wanting to earn more) read all these books and websites and…..instead of actually trying to do something, they seek yet more information and read more stuff and never do anything about it.
  3. The expectation of spoon feeding is a serious problem. People are looking for silver bullets and magic formulae instead of being ready to do real and hard work.
  4. There probably needs to be some “real life” (offline) element to B30 to make it feel more real to the participants.

Some Good News
So, was there any success story from this edition of B30? Well, yes:

  • The seeds for DukaPress were sown during Biashara 30 Season 2 as there was a lot of talk on online shops. In fact, we build DukaPress so as to enable ordinary people in our great nation to set up online shops that just work easily and quickly and be able to work with local currencies and akina MPESA. DukaPress has gone on to make wham and I lots money, too. 🙂
  • One of the Biashara 30 Season 2 participants, Crystal, continues to amaze me with her hard work and “get-it-done” attitude. I can testify that she makes lots of money online! Though I would not say that B30 helped her achieve this. It is more a case of a dedicated individual following her passion and her dreams to fruition.

The Future & Biashara 30 Season 3
So we just laid it bare for you to see. Biashara30 1 and Biashara30 2 both failed to achieve my own personal goals for the program.

However, my dear readers, we know how to make money online. We do make money online. We believe firmly that we should all be making money online and it can be a significant force in helping even just one person in our nation earn more and live a better life. We believe in helping people. We, therefore, are preparing to go through all this again. Yes, Biashara 30 season 3 is coming soon. Would you participate? Do you know anyone who would?

Since B30 Season 2, we have spent a lot of time soul searching and thinking of how to deliver a better program. We feel that we are now ready to try again. Here are some of our thoughts:

  1. B30 Season 3 will be even more selective. We only want to work with people who won’t end up to be a waste of time for us.
  2. We’re thinking of hiring someone to lead the program so that if we get another big job, it will not impact on the program negatively.
  3. The focus of B30 Season 3 will be on the three easiest ways of earning (that we have identified) money and we hope that by the end of the program, everyone will have made money online, or elsewhere.

But We Need Your Help
We realise that we are not authorities in anything. We need your ideas and input on how to make this thing better. How do we solve the problems identified above? Please help us by commenting below.

Are you an aspiring applicant? Would you please share your ideas, questions or queries with us by leaving a comment below?

Is anyone out there willing to help us run this thing? Please leave a comment below.

How To for B30 Season 3
We have not yet put up the application form. However, the application process starts TODAY! If you want to participate in Biashara 30, Season 3, you have to leave a comment here on this article. The comment should not be telling us why we should pick you, it can be anything else that is relevant. Remember that if you do not leave a comment here, you have no chance of joining B30 Season 3. Good luck!

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We’re Off!

February 3, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Biashara 30 has officially started. We look forward to some good times with a group of motivated and ambitious individuals.

What will we be doing? We’ll be doing something along these lines, “I think we need to pool all ideas together. Pick a couple of them that are achievable in the short run (I personally think projects that run for what seems to be infinitely tend to collapse mid-way as the objectives become hazy with time, commitment diminishes etc) and from here give members a chance to group themselves in teams of about 5 people. This should be left to the discretion of the members, so needless to say, we would need to meet sometime in the near future so guys can have a chance to meet the other members and see whom they click with and would work together well. From the ideas chosen each team will pick whichever project they like and start on task division.” (This was written by one of the B30 participants).

We’ll keep you posted on what we get up to. To everyone who applied, thank you.

Filed Under: Biashara 30

Time’s Running Out

January 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment

This is just a quick update on the state of Biashara 30, season 2. The applications have been coming in and we have to say that we never imagined we would get so many. Thank you, everyone, for applying and/or showing interest. It means a whole lot to us. We want to assure all of you that we will give everyone a fair chance to ‘get in’ once we start sorting out the applications.

More than anything else, we are humbled. The quality of the applicants is simply unbelievable and you can just ‘feel’ everyone’s energy and determination. We are excited at the thought of working with you all and cannot wait to get this thing started!

To that end, if you still have not applied, please do so soon. We’ll be closing the application process in a few days and we don’t want anyone to miss out. B30 is about learning to do biashara online; learning by doing. Are you interested? Please apply. It is free and everyone qualifies to get in (but we’ll only work with a small number).

To those who have applied: thank you! Nickel Pro, who sponsor this website and, by extension B30, will be giving away free hosting to everyone who gets in. This is so that you can get your online biasharas up chap chap. Please be patient, we’ll send those acceptance emails out real soon.

Cheers!

Filed Under: Biashara 30

Biashara 30

January 8, 2010 by 8 Comments

Hello!

How is 2010 so far? Nice, eh? We feel that this should be the year in which you finally make it to where you have never been before. We would love it if you moved from success to success all through this year. As you well may know, Like Chapaa’s primary mission is to help as many people as we can achieve success, especially financially.

Therefore, we see it fit to announce that the 2nd edition of Biashara30 shall be starting early in the year, on February 2, 2010.

What is Biashara 30?
Well, Biashara 30 is a fun experiment, or project, in which a group of strangers come together to try and make it as online business people. If you have ever had thoughts of making money online, in whatever way, then B30 may be just what you need.

Currently, we have intentions on focusing this particular edition of B30 on the following:

  • Service businesses – where individuals or groups earn online by offering services (such as design, etc)
  • Product-based businesses – where you sell actual ‘stuff’

While the above are what we are thinking of, they are not necessarily what we shall be doing in this B30 – that is entirely up to the participants.

Who Should join?
Biashara 30 is not for everyone. It is only for those who have a burning desire to see themselves succeed in business; it is for those who can be online everyday; it is for those who are not afraid to try new things; it is for those who want to earn or learn to earn online.

Above all, B30, is for those people who much prefer learning by doing. B30 will not solve all your problems, it is not a silver bullet or a solution to anything. It is a community of people trying to learn together by actually trying to do something.

If that is you, then we invite you to apply. We’ll have lots of fun learning by doing. Oh, and it is free.

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Biashara 30 Confessions

November 4, 2009 by 32 Comments

Does anyone else like that Usher song, Confessions? Well, I love it! And, keeping with the spirit of that song, here are our Biashara 30 confessions….

Some background
Well, we accepted a total of 17 applicants into the first edition of B30. We had received a total of 117 so we, randomly, decided to slash it down by a hundred. Why? We wanted a small group in hopes of forming a close knit community and team. In hindsight, we probably should have let in more people…more on that later.

Actually, not so much later. The reason of thinking that maybe we should have let in more people is because the attrition rate was so very high. You won’t believe it, but about 10 of the 17 that we let in didn’t even sign up or respond to our invitation in any way. Makes me wonder whether they were applying just for fun. And even then, not all of the remaining seven participated fully. We did achieve one thing though: at it’s height, the B30 team felt really “connected”.

A few disappointments…
However, we are, overall, disappointed with this edition of B30. Why? Because just two of the 17 managed to make money online (that we know of). We would have liked to have 17 out of 17! Also, we are disappointed to announce that we are closing the first edition of B30 today despite the program not being fully complete. This really is hard for us to do but as things stand, it is the best thing to do. We apologise for any inconveniences caused by this action.

Smiles
Okay, we’re done with the bad parts of B30. Now, the good. We are very proud of one of the participants, Ms Maria Maina who came in as a green newbie but now has an interesting freelance business as well as an ebook for sale. This is what we want and love to see and it makes us endlessly happy. We’re proud of you, Maria.

Another nice product of Biashara 30 is Kazi360 (don’t click it yet, it is not fully ready). Kazi360 is a Job Board for young professionals in Kenya. Whether you’re looking for a job, or hunting for top-notch talent, Kazi360’s simple but powerful tools are geared towards connecting Kenya’s brightest minds with the best Kenyan companies. It is a joint venture between Like Chapaa and others. While running B30, the need for such a site was very apparent and, as usual, we jumped at the opportunity. You shall be hearing more of this project, you can be sure of that.

Was this edition of B30 successful? Well, sadly, no. We did not achieve everything that we had hoped to achieve. 🙁

What could we have done better?
We’ve thought long and hard about what we could have done better, and here are our conclusions:

  • Kenya is still an offline country, we’re afraid. We realise that we should have had more face-to-face meetings.
  • We should have gone through the material faster. Though it was a lot and sometimes we felt that the pace could hinder the learning…
  • In relation to the above, we should not have spent so much time and effort in the “getting an online job” section of the B30 program. We don’t care much for jobs and we feel we needed to have spent more time on setting up an online business.
  • We also seriously need to find more and better ways of keeping attention and focus levels of the participants up.
  • Wambere (me) should have spent more time in the program. I sadly had other pressing matters to attend to. 🙁

What next?
So there you have it, all the gory details. So what next? First off, we’d LOVE to hear from you. Yes, you. What do you think of all this?

Anyone still willing to take part in the next Biashara 30?

Please discuss in the comments below.

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