10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich

How to get rich the smart way? Read what some creative people did:

1. Million Dollar Homepage

1000000 pixels, charge a dollar per pixel – that’s perhaps the dumbest idea for online business anyone could have possible come up with. Still, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old who came up with the idea, is now a millionaire.

2. SantaMail

Ok, how’s that for a brilliant idea. Get a postal address at North Pole, Alaska, pretend you are Santa Claus and charge parents 10 bucks for every letter you send to their kids? Well, Byron Reese sent over 200000 letters since the start of the business in 2001, which makes him a couple million dollars richer.

3. Doggles

Create goggles for dogs and sell them online? Boy, this IS the dumbest idea for a business. How in the world did they manage to become millionaires and have shops all over the world with that one? Beyond me.

4. LaserMonks

LaserMonks.com is a for-profit subsidiary of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank, an eight-monk monastery in the hills of Monroe County, 90 miles northwest of Madison. Yeah, real monks refilling your cartridges. Hallelujah! Their 2005 sales were $2.5 million! Praise the Lord.

5. AntennaBalls

You can’t sell antenna ball online. There is no way. And surely it wouldn’t make you rich. But this is exactly what Jason Wall did, and now he is now a millionaire.

6. FitDeck

Create a deck of cards featuring exercise routines, and sell it online for $18.95. Sounds like a disaster idea to me. But former Navy SEAL and fitness instructor Phil Black reported last year sales of $4.7 million. Surely beats what military pays.

7. PositivesDating.Com

How would you like to go on a date with an HIV positive person? Paul Graves and Brandon Koechlin thought that someone would, so they created a dating site for HIV positive folks last year. Projected 2006 sales are $110,000, and the two hope to have 50,000 members by their two-year mark.

8. Designer Diaper Bags

Christie Rein was tired of carrying diapers around in a freezer bag. The 34-year-old mother of three found herself constantly stuffing diapers for her infant son into freezer bags to keep them from getting scrunched up in her purse. Rein wanted something that was compact, sleek and stylish, so in November 2004, she sat down with her husband, Marcus, who helped her design a custom diaper bag that's big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes and two to four diapers. With more than $180,000 in sales for 2005, Christie's company, Diapees & Wipees, has bags in 22 different styles, available online and in 120 boutiques across the globe for $14.99.

9. PickyDomains

Hire another person to think of a cool domain name for you? No way people would pay for this. Actually, naming domain names for others turned out a thriving business, especially, when you make the entire process risk free. PickyDomains currently has a waiting list of people who want to PAY the service to come up with a snappy memorable domain name. PickyDomains is expected to hit six figures this year.

10. Lucky Wishbone Co.

Fake wishbones. Now, this stupid idea is just destined to flop. Who in the world needs FAKE PLASTIC wishbones? A lot of people, it turns out. Now producing 30,000 wishbones daily (they retail for 3 bucks a pop) Ken Ahroni, the company founder, expects 2006 sales to reach $1 million.

Scamming Nigerian Scammers - VERY FUNNY

Here for you who likes to read! This guy nicknamed Shiver Metimbers scammed many scammers via emails.

http://www.419eater.com

God may not be speaking through you pastors!

In this blog entry I am going to argue that God may not be speaking through your pastors by using simple logic and some valid assumptions.

I have previously written this article last year. Now, after sharting this blog, I feel that I should share this to everybody. I hope that I don't offend anyone. I myself is a Christian and I have nothing against my religion or the Church.

First Assumption: God is rational

I am going to use this main assumption and the implication of the rationality of God is that He will act in the same manner when He is in the same situations. A irrational act in human context will be: you tell James that you dislike Janet. Then when you meet him again 5 minutes you tell James that you like her (under same condition, meaning that Janet did not do anything to you or you didn't hear a new information about Janet that makes you like her).

Had you been in different situations, you may act differently. For example if Janet suddenly sent you flowers, you would probably tell James that you like Janet now. This is rational. Although you act differently with regard to your opinion on Janet, but the situations are different. Had you been in the same situation and you act differently, then you are being irrational.

Now, you know that there are a lot of preachers claiming that what they are saying comes from God. But you also know there are many Christian denominations with different ideologies. This means that pastors from different denominations are preaching differently! For example, charismatic churches such as City Harvest would practice speaking-in-toungue while Presbyterian churches regard it as false. There are others disagreements that every denominations will choose not to argue about. But that's ok.

What is important here is that: if God is rational, he will not speak differently to different churches. The situation here is the same. God is speaking to His people. Sure, different churches are located differently. But I think it makes no sense if God is saying that we must speak in tongue in one church and saying that we should not in another. And the two churches can be metres apart. Or, God says one thing to your mother and another to your father. Just because they both attend different churches.

You now know that there are some pastors that are not voicing God's words. Because if everyone is being used by God, then there are no denominations and all church practises will be universal.

Second Assumption: Pastors use the same techniques in 'extracting' God's voice

In theology classes, pastors might be thought how to pray and how to prepare their sermons. Most of the times they claim that they are passing God's words to the congregration. Or they implicitly say that 'God please use your humble pastor to tell them what You want to say'. These are gimmicks. All thought in schools. Assuming that pastors use the same techniques taught to them in theology schools to get God's voice, then we can safely say that the technique is not fool-proof.

After all if the technique is fool-proof, then all pastors will be preaching the same ideology (means no denomination exists). Now if the technique is flawless, should pastors say that their words come from God? Yes if they are referring completely to the Bible. But most of the times pastors 'infer' that this is what God wants etc. And different pastors might infer differently. Some pastors like to use the Hebrew version of the Bible but some like the NIV version. A pastor can use the Hebrew version this Sunday but use NIV version the week after because they want to support their claim.

I believe that the presence of flawed technique warrants pastor to declare before preaching that 'what they preach might not come from God and you all should re-check with the Bible or God'.

If there are different techniques in the market, then we can say that some techniques are flawed but another is perfect. This is more complicated and I don't want to argue it. My understanding is that most pastors will pray to know what God wants to speak through them.

Conclusion

God may not be speaking through your pastors. Pastors should declare that 'God may not be speaking through them' before preaching.

There will be some follow-ups regarding that such declarations will undermine pastors' authority.

Nuffnang and Advertlets

The two blog advertising companies have caused a stir in the blogging world. They both provides an avenue for blog owners to monetize their blogs.

Difficulty in establishing advertising companies

Establishing an advertising companies such as Nuffnang and Advertlets is difficult because you have to get a lot of bloggers to make your company attractive to advertisers. And then you have to convince bloggers to place your advertisements by promising some monetary rewards.

It is relatively easier to convince the bloggers because they don't stand to lose anything. The most is that they have to sacrifice some blog space for the advertisement, which most of the time looks good.

However it is more difficult to get the advertisers. If I were a potential advertisers, I would want to spend my money carefully. I would worry about the payment system, whether is it Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Thousand Impression (CPM). Unlike advertising in established website, bloggers are deemed less trustworthy because they have more incentive to click the ads themselves or keep refreshing the page with ads. Established companies are less likely to do so because if it is revealed that they do such practice, then other advertisers will shun their websites. And this means a huge loss in revenues.

Most ordinary bloggers will also lose potential revenues if they conduct illegal clickings or refreshings but the most they stand to lose is a couple of bucks per month. The cost of operating their website is 0. So unlike established websites, they have less to lose and is more inclined to do illegal clickings.

Getting advertisers in the case of Nuffnang and Advertlets is difficult for sure. There are other alternative advertising avenues such as print media or direct marketing. Blogs reach to the youths, but you can also advertise in MRTs like what ITE did at Somerset MRT. Or the Army in teens magazine. Why risk your dollars in blog advertising where you know that you wouldn't get the most out of your money?

This explains why Nuffnang do not have many advertisers these days. And blog2u only displays their partners' ads all the time.

How to succeed in this business

Google definitely succeeds in internet advertising. In fact it is its main source of revenue, by placing ads in search results page and in other websites that place Google Adsense (very much like Nuffnang and Advertlets scripts but not limited to blogs). What distinguish Google is that it is an established company, unlike Nuffnang which is started by a couple of teenagers. It also has a fraud-detection system which will know if the site owners are clicking their own ads. Although not fool-proof, it is can convince most advertisers to use Google's service.

Nuffnang and Advertlets should also be more professional in running the business. I feel that the movie gathering for blog owners is a no-no. It somehow puts an idea that bloggers might be clicking each others' ads and I am more scared in advertising in them.

Nuffnang also childishly cut bloggers' pay because their blogs were down for a couple of days due to Advertlets' script. Yes, they have a right to do so. And they might lose thousand of dollars from the loss of impressions. But nobody likes to get a cut. It just sounds like bloggers are the employees and Nuffnang is the boss. You wouldn't do that if you want a good customer relationship.

The exclusive club is also a disaster. Even Google do not dare to implement such club. It only brings in more intense competition! Sometimes in a business you have to implicitly 'co-operate' with your rivals. Like in the case of petrol stations charging almost the same price. In my opinion Nuffnang is very inexperienced when they implement the club. They might lose a big chuck of their advertisers.

More competition will also stress both the companies' owners. Not exactly what you want to do when you own a small company. If you have a big company, as an owner you can let your employees worry about the profits. But in a small partnership you get to worry about everything. And your income might be tied to the company's profit. So you worry more when you decided to wage war with your rivals. They sure will retaliate!

For bloggers

I found out that you don't earn much from these advertising companies. At most you get $5 per month. You may also get nothing.

Still, there is no cost in putting their ads. The benefits is always equal or greater than the cost of putting the ads. So in economic theory, you should do so.

Some of the bloggers have complained that bloggers are funding extravagant lifestyle of Nuffnang owners. Some alleged that Nuffnang bought expensive Apple computers for their employees. Will you want to share your blogs to make someone else's rich? I think it is quite irrelevant because it does not affect you personally. However, some people do and they quit putting ads. For me, I would be indifferent but will not use the excuse of making some brats rich if I don't put ads in my website. It's more like I don't want to clutter my blog with small icons. I want my readers to focus on my writings instead.

New players

Such blog advertising companies are easy to set up. Blog2u was founded a few months back and I can foresee many will come. Bloggers can put as many ads as possible and there is little barrier-to-entry for new companies. Probably this is why Nuffnang introduce its Gliteratti club. It is to deter new companies which might steal its advertisers.

tatarah.com.sg

Some of you might have heard of tatarah in Singapore, where lowest unique bid wins an auction. I have previously encountered this type of auction before: selling properties in Europe. It was quite tempting at that time because you can win a house for a couple of bucks. But I decided not to bid because the website didn't look legitimate and I am worried that my credit card details would be stolen. Wait! At that time I was still in secondary school. So I guess I didn't have any credit card at all.

The ideas is ingenious. You bid low, but nobody must bid the same as you. Truth is, winning in this type of auction is based on luck. And I would equal bidding the auction as betting. Why? Because when you place a bid, you are required to pay processing fee ranging from $1 to $200 (depending on what items you are bidding on, the more expensive the item the higher the fee). So if you happened not to win the auction, then you forfeit the processing fee. Sounds like gambling isn't it? And I wonder why the government doesn't regulate the business.

A success or a failure

Recently tatarah changed its bidding system and instead of lowest unique bid wins, single highest bid wins. This indicates that lowest unique bid might not be as profitable as the owners thought. When the number of bidders is small, the website makes little money or maybe a loss when an auction is closed. This is because the total processing fees earned in an auction do not cover the item cost. And considering the million-dollars marketing campaign the website did months back, they certainly have to move to highest unique bid.

Many users then complain that the highest unique bid system is not as interesting as the lowest one. And I personally agree. Highest unique bid is quite similiar to buying from normal auction like ebay, but in this case buyers have to pay the processing fee. Doesn't look very tempting, does it? Still, some people can get bargains when there are little bidders.

Whether tatarah becomes a success is difficult to tell. There will be people frustrated spending $30 bidding in 5 auctions only not to win any. There are also people who continually bid because they know there will be other frustrated people who simply cease participating in tatarah and hence, the lesser bidders mean the higher the chance of getting products at bargain price.

Conclusion

Personally I would stay away from tatarah because you are risking your money when you bid. The most recent auction I saw was the 'Mount Faber Valentine Dining' worth $316 but the maximum allowed bid is $50. The last received bid is $48.48. You can potentially get about $270 discount. But you may potentially don't. So it's more like gambling.

be or not to be an entrepreneur

There are a lot of stories portraying how someone who started a certain business gets a handsome amount of income every month. Or maybe, a lot of profit money out of his business.

But that is just sweet talk. The fact is, there are many people who started a company and failed. And sometimes they go bankrupt!

It is a big decision one has to make when he wants to start a business. Sure, the reward can be greater than your current salary and you can be your own boss. But as in any capitalist state, greater rewards will incur greater risk.

Starting a new type of business

When you start a business that is currently not yet invented, the risk is very high. This is because you cannot copy existing companies' operations and the way they do their business. You are also unsure of your business profitability. Imagine if you are opening a cybercafe. You know there are a lot of cybercafes around, so you can easily infer that they are making profits (provided they have been in business for more than a year). You can also copy their operations, such as the number of computers to provide and the operating hours.

But when you start an altogether new type of business, you are not sure if you are going to make a profit. You can definitely do some market research, but this will be an additional cost and the research may not always be accurate. You may also have to introduce your products or services to the public which then requires a load of advertising money.

It is not easy. But then if you succeed, the return is potentially higher than if you start a non-new type of business. At least in the short-run. This is because for a short period of time, you are the only provider of this new product or service. And therefore if the product sells well, you will earn a lot of money because of the monopoly. Once there are other businessmen realized that your business is profitable, they will then try to copy your business, and your supernormal profit will be eroded.

Downsides

Yes, you can earn a lot of money by starting your own business. But if you are living in a developed countries, being an entrepreneur might not be so rewarding.

Firstly, although you have invented a popular product, your profit will be eroded once there are new players selling your product. You will then start scratching your head and look for ways to deter the competition. More money will be required in advertising your brand and this will ultimately reduce your bottom line. See, you will also be stressed and this is also a cost.

In developed countries, information is widely available. You can easily search for suppliers and sometimes the tax returns of a certain company. It is relatively easy for anyone to copy another business, especially if the start-up cost is not high. Even when start-up cost is high, if the business is profitable then richer businessmen will copy it.

Now, you are stressed with competition and your income is reduced. What's worse is that your company is incapable of handling the competition and goes bust. Yes, the risk in starting a business does not end once you have gained a good profit. Newcomers are also a threat to your business and it will last forever.

You may remember how Nintendo and SEGA once dominated the video games market in the early 90's. Even the owner of Nintendo was once one of the richest men in the world. But by the mid-90's and beyond, their sovereignty was compromised by Sony which introduced the Playstation. The mentioned owner of Nintendo suddenly slips in the billionaire's ranking due to the decrease in Nintendo's profitability. Now, Nintendo's rising with the Wii and this will also be part of your day-to-day life. You have to compete with others. Sometimes you lose some but sometimes you win some.

The story of Nintendo is a good one. There are however, other companies that fall back and never recovered. So the question is: Is it worth it? If you just stay in your current job, you can probably save yourself from the intense pressure inherent in any business owner. You can then retire peacefully when you reach 55.

Why some entrepreneurs remain rich

I have read in my marketing business that most businesses will not last beyond 8 years or so. Some business do because they have a high barrier-to-entry. For example: to start a petrol company you have to invest billions of dollars. To sell your new Operating System, you have to spend a lot of money in persuading computer users to dump their Windows system. And to compete with a popular chicken rice stall, you have to get their recipes, which may not be sold.

Most entrepreneurs will also sustain their high income by venturing to other businesses or to collude with their competitors. This is not ethical but can happen. Recently, pest companies colluded in tenders which results in consumers paying higher -than-normal price.

Conclusion

It is your choice to start a business. But you should consider if it is worth your time, money and lifestyle. I have personally started one and I can tell you that the first few months are very stressful. I now consider of studying hard in the university so that I can get a have career.