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The Eee and the Entrepreneur |
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From his
hammock in the white sand paradise of Placencia, Belize, Bret
Jones runs the show. Watching him sip casually on a mango
smoothie, and looking at his faded "Better Belize it" t-shirt and
3 day growth of stubble, you wouldn't imagine this chap was
allegedly pulling in 80k a month from a series of E-commerce sites. This is the era of the internet entrepreneur. No longer are folks obligated to work from a stuffy office in a city with soaring property prices and crime rates. All Bret needs is his factor 30 sun cream, a satellite internet connection and his ultraportable Asus Eee laptop. I caught up with Bret at the 5 star Robert's Grove hotel in Placencia and he was happy to share his experiences of the Eee and making big bucks online: |
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Todd: Hi Bret, how does the Eee facilitate your globetrotting
lifestyle? Bret: I use it to check on email, login to affiliate, contextual advertising and hosting accounts. Todd: Tell me why you chose the Asus Eee? Bret: I'm in and out of airports every month so when passing through security I love the Eee's compact chassis and the fact it weighs less than 1 KG. The flash hard drive and streamlined Linux OS is also handy as the laptop boots up in around 15 secs, unlike my old windows powered laptop which sometimes took 2 minutes to boot. Also I don't mind giving it a hammering because these Eees are so cheap at under 500 bucks. I back up the data daily on a USB drive. If the Asus goes kaput I'll just buy another one. In fact I could buy four of these for the price of some high end ultraportable laptops currently on the market. Plus I love the laptop's minimalistic design. It doesn't garner unwanted attention which is great because I don't want to attract thieves. Todd: The specs on the Asus Eee are pretty low end, isn't this a hindrance to running your online business? Bret: Not at all! Sure the hard drive is only 8GB with 1GB of RAM but I find this more than adequate for the tasks I need. I can't play the latest 3D games , or host a 120 GB Itunes collection but look around you....Living somewhere like this I've got no desire to fritter away my time laptop gaming. I find the Asus Eee helps me streamline and focus on the essentials of business. When work is finished the laptop is closed and I love to fish, sail and snorkel in the gorgeous aquamarine waters of the Placencia Peninsula. I'm also involved in conservation projects. Todd: Which sites do you make money on? Bret: Wouldn't you like to know :) Todd: Come on man I just bought you a broiled Caribbean Lobster the size of a Shetland pony....you can give me a few tips. Bret: LOL Todd: Come on dude, spill the beans. Bret: Ok let me preface this by saying I know of no easy ways to make big money quickly. Yes now my online business just takes a few hours a day to maintain, but to reach that stage it took me a few years graft and sweat to set up. If you want my advice though - go niche. I like to find a product or topic with a high demand and low competition. Digitalpoint offer an excellent keyword suggestion tool that is great for initial research and to help novices get a feel for whatever online market they're considering. Then after more detailed research using a site like Wordtracker you need to buy a domain and build yourself a site related to this product and write some interesting content for your visitor. After that you need traffic, Google adwords sometimes give away free $50 coupons to try their PPC service. Or you can surf the tidal wave of organic Google, Msn, and Yahoo traffic by optimizing your site. If you want to go the organic search route Aaron Wall's SEO Book is a must read. But don't try and slap any form of advertising on your site until you have some traffic and this can take months to build. There are new opportunities creating applications for social network sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Myspace.....Traffic potential is everywhere. But don't spam and make sure the traffic is targeted as that converts. Todd: Say I follow your instructions and build a site getting some tasty traffic in a profitable niche, how do I monetize it and get myself a piece o' Placencia paradise? Bret: I thought this interview was about the Asus Eee? Todd: Come on dude, you know you want to. Bret: Lol.....I could chat for hours about the pros and cons of of affiliate programs but there are some cutting edge marketers out there that explain it better than me. John Chow's blog is a must read for those considering a career in online marketing. Another good source of information is the DoshDosh blog. Unrelated to affiliate marketing but offering some great pointers on time management is Tim Ferriss's 4 Hour Workweek book. One essential ingredient I forgot to mention was passion. There's a story about Socrates that is worth mentioning. A young man asked Socrates "Please - Teach me knowledge master!".....Socrates responded: "Come into the water and I will impart the first lesson."....The young man agreed, and both he and Socrates stood side by side chest-high in the water. Without warning Socrates pushed down on the head of the man and held him under the water. He struggled for a minute, thrashing in the water and almost drowned before Socrates pulled him up for breath....."When your desire for knowledge as great as your desire to breathe, you will learn....." Todd: So in short start with cats like Aaron Wall, John Chow and Socrates if you want to make money online? Bret: You'd better Belize it! Related article: - Tim Ferriss's 4 Hour Workweek By Todd Gold - Laptopical Friday, January 04, 2008 |
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