Intrepreneurship 101 - Web Biz Ideas
Intrepreneurship is all about building "web presences." Web presences with lasting value. Value is defined as content, product, or services that customers feel compelled to read or buy... customers spending their scarce resources of time or money with you. Lasting value is defined by how many times you can encourage the same customers to repeat that experience with you. It requires uniqueness, a "market niche."
Below are niche ideas culled from the Internet; ideas that possibly will germinate a seed of Intrepreneurship in you:
Launch a Travel and Tour Service
Are you an expert in one part of the world? Do you know the Napa wineries like the back of your hand.? Do you love Paris and know lots of its very special spots, cafes, walks, parks? Do you know the best way to tour the Grand Canyon? then start a travel website on your obsession and develop advertisements, bulletin boards, chat rooms and have a really good time in the process making money for something about which you are passionate. You can also sell ads to airlines, travel bookstores, travel product catalogs, the local luggage stores and limo services. Pepper your website with hand drawn maps, hot tips, and ratings.
Place and Sell Adspace:
Help other webpreneurs get ads for their websites. You'll be starting your very own online advertising agency. Study small business industries and develop a target list of potential advertisers. Seek sponsors.
Cater to Special Interests Groups
Start a service website that contains listings for events, concerts, and other activities that will attract a dedicated group of followers. Sell ads to companies that are compatible with your products and service listings. For example, if you are develop a website of holiday parties and planning, contact appropriate companies who might be interested in advertising on such a specific site.
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Become a Cyber Assistant
You can launch a personal or corporate concierge business right from your kitchen table. Work for others conducting research, putting together mailing lists, ordering tickets, and more. D.A. Hemphill wrote a book called CyberAssistant (AMACOM, $19.95) that will help give you plenty of fuel to launch this business.
Sponsor a Sports Site for Community Teams
Local sports teams in your area--everything from corporate baseball teams and Little League to the high school girls' tennis team--would love to be immortalized on the web. They might not have a website, but you can create a roving sports reporter website that will include regional activities of all the teams. You'll include scores, tournaments, events and photographs thanks to your scanner. You can charge teams a fee to be included on your sports website, or you can generate revenue exclusively from the advertising you will sell to local sports stores, batting ranges, golf courses and local tennis clubs.
Publish a Local Online Magazine
How many residents in your community are online? If you determine that you have thousands of folks with online status, consider starting your own online magazine. You'll write about local events, affairs, politics, publish articles on upcoming shows, plays and community happenings along with letters to the editor, essays and more. You'll also carry advertisements from local businesses who want to reach a very targeted market. Conduct interviews of local business and charge a fee for featuring them on your web site (soft advertising). You can change your magazine on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis.
Start a Survey Business
You can use the Internet to create your own survey business. Run e-mail customer satisfaction surveys for local business. You'll take surveys and polls of Internet users for businesses and others and you'll also conduct them for fun on a wide variety of topics--sometimes wild and wacky--just to attract visitors to your site.
Teach a Class Online
Do you possess a special talent or skill? Certified in any technical courses? Could you teach it to others online? If you determine that the answer is 'yes' then write up your course as quickly as possible and start a website "teaching" your talent or skill.
Start an Online Art Gallery
Contact local artists in your community and scan photos of their art work, sculpture, photography into your computer. Post it on various auction websites or start your own website selling their artistic efforts. You can sell advertisements from local art supply stores, local framers, etc. on your website to make even more cash from your new online business.
Start a net-based Talk Show
Host discussions and Q and A sessions with guests on your website. Banner ads that scroll through the conversations could be worth a nice income. This could be a serious endeavor or a fun, kitsch enterprise that develops a worldwide cult following.
