An essay on how I left employment as a java programmer and started building my online empire. I will tell you what I have learned on opening an online store. I have been in the business for over 4 years now. But before, I worked as a computer programmer working to 5 different companies. The reasons I job hop is because I couldn't find a very stable software company. a software company that has been running for over 5 years is definitely a good place to stay. The companies I worked for are start-ups and that is only where they are at the "start". My last employment is a java based software development firm. They pay around $3.2 an hour which is fairly good around here. I left 2 months after. That's because I finally realized that i don't want to code all my life. I want to be the one who will be the client of software companies. If only I had the money to start. In a party I had a long talk to my neighbor. Ramesh who is indian has established an exporting company for almost 10 years. I talked to him about how he started his business. He told a very long story. However at the end of it I told him "I want to start an online business. But I'll start doing it next year". He asked "Why?" I said "I don't have the capital." chuckling He quickly replied. "When I started my business, I also didn't have capital." That's what really moved me into this business. I do not need capital because everyone starts small. From then on I studied how people doing business on the internet I found out that a decent number of small websites are blogs. If I could only write as good as these writers I would start one. but i am not a good blogger. Then I found out about Shopster. Shopster.com is a dropshipping concept. You basically open up a store and then you pay them $29.95 a month. Dropshipping has been around already but the concept is online retailers promote the products of the wholesaler and when they get orders they call the warehouse and immediately ships them to the buyer. The retailers then earns through the markup they put on the product. Although Shopster is a legitimate dropshipper I would not recommend it. Why because a) you pay for a high monthly cost b) The prices are not lower. But feel free to try their concept they have 3 month trial so try it for yourself. Now I have a fair amount of experience on e-commerce.Hence, the biggest lesson I learned is that in the online world rules also apply the same on the offline world. "People buy to the store they only trust". I would ask myself, why would I buy a $200 cellphone to www.your-never-heard-of-store.com and not from Amazon? Why would I risk my credit card information? What if the retailer failed to deliver the order? Will I get a refund? So I didn't pursue the ecommerce store but I'm not done yet. There are still many ways to build my online empire. One that I will try next is opening my very first affiliate store. I also opened my own web directory. I truly believe that in this information age and globalization, websites are the future properties. Websites make money so anything that makes money with little or no supervision is considered an asset.
ummm....having read all the way through that - isn't it a tale of how you left employment and didn't start an online store?
hmmm.... long story... but have you decided your mind to start an affiliate store... where to give products with your affiliate links...? if yes then one suggestion try to open a coupon store linking with your affiliate products as everyone who is buying always like to get coupon to get the things at discounted price...
I guess thats not that bad, depends how many hours a day thats coming in. If its $3.00 per hour for al twentt four hours thats great.
Well I have my own story that I would like to share with all of you. I looked at digg website and thought that a copy of it for an Indian context will be helpful. For this reason I started a digg clone for Indian context. The idea was a digg clone for Indian context. I got free code from phpDug. The website started in a day. I got someone cheap from India to start posting 10 news daily on this website. I posted ad on addex ( dont remember exact) and few places here and there. After one month I got only few new visitor. It was a failure. I found at least 20 clones of digg and at least 10 for Indian context. I then looked at finance websites. I buy and sell a lot of shares, mostly Indian and Chinese. I did not find a list of Indian ADRs or Chinese ADRs, so I created two subpage that listed Indian and Chinese ADRs. These pages become instant hit. I posted some ads in yahoo finance board. Encouraged by this I created two additional pages that listed the Indian and Chinese ADRs / Stocks by P/E. These pages became more hits. The money was not grand but I made more than $100 in the first month. This month in Dec 07 I am likely to cross $200 in my monthly payment. I hope to continue experimenting this and make about 20 websites generating $200 each for $4000 monthly payment. It may take 2 years to do that.
Congratulations for your success and for being brave enough to take the decision of leaving your previous job.
Risky..I salute you for being brave to take the chances like this. I wouldnt not resign from what I do best now, being a surveyor and a electrical circuit designer. Even I love internet so much. Its good to have motivation but its better to make a thorough research before jumping onto it. Since now you are experimenting and looking for niche, I wish you the best luck.