I thought it might be a good idea to open a thread after this post came up as I often have had people in the past pm'g me about running an Internet business. To be honest it really bores me and I don't even talk about my work on industry forums that often. I would much prefer to be discussing property investing and that is what will be my main business in the future, if you want to talk about property then that is what I'm much more passionate about but I'm also not able to offer much advice yet. I had to disable PM's as I didn't really have time and energy to offer advice privately about Internet businesses. So instead of having my threads interrupted and to offer some channel for discussions on running an Internet business then your welcome to ask me questions here but I really don't see myself as an expert at all so only take any feedback as just that, feedback. I would be more than happy to help the best I can on this thread so go ahead.
My Off Topic Thread
- Thread starter HomeBuyAU
- Start date
sooo - is this thread about you offering advise on internet businesses and/or answering questions (yay)? or is it a thread about nothing in particular (that's okay too)?
it it's the first - then i'd rather take you out for coffee/wine and lunch, chat about real estate and pick your brains. i'm looking at starting a business where i have a product ... however, i understand that for a business to work well it really doesn't so much have anything to do with the product but rather the system ... and i'm struggling with the system side of things as i can't stop being focused on the product.
hope that made sense.
it it's the first - then i'd rather take you out for coffee/wine and lunch, chat about real estate and pick your brains. i'm looking at starting a business where i have a product ... however, i understand that for a business to work well it really doesn't so much have anything to do with the product but rather the system ... and i'm struggling with the system side of things as i can't stop being focused on the product.
hope that made sense.
Lizzie, technically this thread can be about anything but it was made for the purpose of offering a channel for members who wanted to ask me questions about running a business online.
Well coffee/wine and lunch sounds good and real estate chat so I would enjoy meeting you in Newcastle sometime
But I will mention though that my own business does not involve selling through an ordering system, I make my income purely on commissions so no customer interaction, no invoicing, no product handling or shipping etc. But I might be able to offer some tips on ecommerce since I have a good understanding of what online shoppers want. I use to build ecommerce systems back in the 90's but a lot has changed since then.
Well coffee/wine and lunch sounds good and real estate chat so I would enjoy meeting you in Newcastle sometime
But I will mention though that my own business does not involve selling through an ordering system, I make my income purely on commissions so no customer interaction, no invoicing, no product handling or shipping etc. But I might be able to offer some tips on ecommerce since I have a good understanding of what online shoppers want. I use to build ecommerce systems back in the 90's but a lot has changed since then.
Hi Monsoon,
Thanks for the thread.
I currently work in IT industry as a Business Analyst/.NET Developer and I am keen to work from home which will give me the flexibility to live anywhere in the world. I was wondering if you can tell me a bit about your business and how I can do something similar?
Can you please post a link of one of your business website? And how it generates income?
Thanks.
Thanks for the thread.
I currently work in IT industry as a Business Analyst/.NET Developer and I am keen to work from home which will give me the flexibility to live anywhere in the world. I was wondering if you can tell me a bit about your business and how I can do something similar?
Can you please post a link of one of your business website? And how it generates income?
Thanks.
Thanks for starting this thread.
I have a quick question about building an online store with a shopping cart that has backend access to make changes.
Is ASP or PHP better?
i believe that ASP requires a Windows server to host, not Linux but i'm hearing different things from different people about which is better.
I've also been told how the site is built will affect SEO and should the coding be bad or the tags incorrect, then the SEO will cost more to fix.
I believe HTML sites are old fashion and completely useless in terms of functionality and SEO.
Well if you are already in the IT industry with those skills you already have a good head start.
I really would prefer to keep my main income generating websites private and I won't be displaying them I'm sorry but I will show a couple of others below.
I can tell you though that to succeed or to just make an income online you need to have a few things in your favour including:
Luck
A good business plan
Research
Patience
To have "flexibility to live anywhere in the world" and work from your laptop like I do then there are a few options open to you including:
- Run an Internet shop using Drop Shipping - This is similar to having your own ecommerce enabled webshop but you use a third party drop shipper to handle the orders and processing.
- Have a website generating sales through affiliate programs - Sell goods for other companies and take a commission from each sale.
- Have a website Selling products that you design but don't have to handle for example use CafePress & CPShops to run a shop selling T-shirts you design.
- Have a busy content driven website with lot's of organic traffic that you make revenue from ads. For example create a website using a Wordpress backend and write articles on a subject you are interested in; like cooking, take videos of you cooking your favorite recipes and upload them to your site, write the recipes and share them etc.... Here is one I have made myself although I have yet to get a video camera but the photos I took myself. http://chefcooking.org/ - because I have used Wordpress I'm able to easily upload the images and write the recipes etc. I make a little revenue from the ads but this site is mainly just so I can put all of my favorite recipes in one place and when I work out how to cook something I can put it here.
- Write an ebook and sell it through various methods online.
I have no experience with Ebooks or drop shipping but they could work for you.
I have not worked with shopping carts for years so I'm not sure where the technology is at right now.
As for ASP v Php, well if you are just starting then I would say definitely go with Php, ASP is quite Old School but I actually have a few sites built on ASP. In fact I love ASP as I know it better than Php but the good thing with Php is that there are so many resources available for it so if you ever get stuck just hop online and get onto one of the forums and your have your code in minutes.
ASP & Php offer the ability to have dynamic websites running on databases. It means that you have a lot more control and flexibility.
Maybe talk to eternit as he knows .NET which is another option, ASP.NET
My biggest tip for you all is just start it and learn as you go. I wasted many years trying to learn coding and designing etc but it's much better to spend that time on building a business plan and then just learn things as you need them. For example if you need to learn how to create a logo in Photoshop then just type "logo in Photoshop" into a search engine and find a tutorial. Don't spend months going to classes to learn Photoshop.
Hi Monsoon, this thread sounds like it will be an interesting read.
Or get (practically) slave labour to do it here: http://www.elance.com
Or get (practically) slave labour to do it here: http://www.elance.com
most cpanel hosting comes with oscommerce or cube cart both auto install very easy to startup as long as the hosting you buy includes fantastico will make it very simple.
I can recommend Quadra Host... $20/month for a very fast Australian server and as many domains as you like under the one package. I have about 5 domains so far all running off the one $20/m account, including rauction.
