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. 

What is the idea? (from FAQ on the site)

The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, ‘The Million Dollar Homepage”. The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don’t like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!

So, everyone is welcome to buy my pixels, which are available in 100-pixel ‘blocks’ (each measuring 10×10 pixels). You will see the homepage is divided into 10,000 of these 100-pixel blocks (hence there are 1,000,000 pixels in total). The reason for selling them in 100-pixel blocks is because anything smaller would be too small to display anything meaningful.

You can buy as many pixels as you like, as long as there are some available (see the live stats in the top right corner of the page). When you buy some pixels, you can then display an image/ad/logo of your choice in the space you have purchased. You can also have the image click through to your own website. However, no obscene or offensive images are allowed.

The pixels you buy will be displayed on the homepage permanently. The homepage will not change. Using some of the money I make from the site, I guarantee to keep it online for at least 5 years, but hopefully much longer. I want it to become a kind of internet time capsule. So, in the long run, I believe the pixels will offer good value. You will have a piece of internet history!

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.

About SantaMail from their site

Since 2002, Santa has been helping us write over 275,000 personalized Christmas letters. Santa makes sure that we use the finest heirloom-quality, acid-free linen paper so that his letters last a lifetime.

As Santa’s helpers, we help Santa print his letters and then mail them to him in North Pole, Alaska where he affixes a Christmas stamp on it and sends it on the way to your child. From there, the letter gets postmarked and mailed. (After December 16, he has us mail them directly from Austin, Texas so they reach the children in time!).

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. 

About Doggles from their site

We are famous for Doggles   goggles for dogs – the first and only eye protection designed and created just for dogs!  Seen on CNN, Regis and Kelly, The Today Show, Good Morning America and many others, they are quite a hit with everyone who has tried them! We are also an environmentally conscious organization, using as much “green” or recycled fabrics and materials in our products as possible, always keeping in mind that what is good for our planet is also good for our pets. Our standards are high, and you will see this in each and every one of our products. We are market leaders in the design and manufacture of tough and durable and yes, even “green”, dog toys. Please be sure to check our offerings in the toy category as you look through our site. Our outdoor line has won the praise of many an outdoor enthusiast as we continue to grow and improve the line. And of course, our fashion sense has never ended as we are always adding and improving to our fashion harness line. We have a wide range of products that are truly functional and have helped many pets over the years as we continue to innovate in the pet products field.  As always, keep an eye on us for more.

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.

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Not a day goes by without my hearing or reading about economic, credit, or cash flow problems. That’s what happens when you work in the barter industry. Thankfully it is very refreshing to be able to talk to people I meet about the solution and not just agree with them and be part of the problem. For many small business owners they cannot even access the equity in their homes and refinance to improve cash flow, and many banks are scared to lend to those that need it.

Barter is nothing new – it’s been around since the dawn of Man – and I’m glad such an old and tried-and-tested method of doing business is actually getting its proper and fair share of the limelight in the local and national press. If one were to be totally honest, barter is the only stable part of our global economy. Look back to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2002. It took them going back to bartering to set their economy back on track. Seven years later over 500,000 people and businesses still hold strongly to barter, because they don’t trust their cash economy. Unfortunately many other western countries are teetering dangerously close to the Argentinean scenario.

That’s obviously good news for the barter industry, and especially for Merchants Barter Exchange (www.merchantsbarter.com) with their new form of trading: MBE-barter. Like the barter our cavemen ancestors participated in, organized barter is nothing new and actually dates back to the mid-1950s here in America. The challenge has always been controlling the flow of internal currency (usually referred to as “barter dollars”) and maintaining the integrity of the barter economy (not letting members inflate prices, or take part payment in cash, or in any other way tarnish the initial reputation of the membership.)

That’s where Merchants Barter Exchange and MBE-barter stands head and shoulders above practically all the other barter organizations out there today. Because of their internal systems and “checks and balances” procedures, you will never incur any of those bad practices when utilizing MBE-barter. In fact, any member caught trying to damage the integrity of the exchange is immediately expelled from the system, thus ensuring only the very highest quality standards in the industry. Unfortunately for their competition, the only way any existing barter exchange hindered by the old way of doing things can even begin to compete on the same level is to start from scratch – that puts them almost ten years behind Merchants Barter Exchange. That’s an impressive head-start and that keeps them ahead of the pack.

Additionally, through these higher quality standards and control systems, MBE-barter allows members to conduct much bigger trades than is even remotely possible with lesser exchanges. A few examples of trades possible via MBE-barter all at 100% (something no other barter company can promote) are $100,000 printing jobs, brand new forklifts, new home and office furniture, vehicles – the list is practically endless. Because everything is transacted at the same cash price and 100% bartered, there is no difference using MBE-barter for needed goods and services as using cash or credit, except for the obvious economic and marketing benefits a member gains.

Therefore, as an alternative to cash, MBE-barter is the best substitute by far, and actually has mechanisms in place to protect existing cash business. Obviously in this Internet-age, there are many web-based barter organizations emerging, however they have simply put a “modern” face on the flawed, old ways of doing barter, which cannot stamp out blending cash and barter for trades, cannot control pricing, cannot effectively co-ordinate member trades to keep the economy balanced and flowing with integrity. In short, they probably won’t last as long as their older companions, or grow to be more than a fleeting fad.

Existing Merchants Barter Exchange members are sitting pretty and patting themselves on the back for getting involved when they did. The good news for non-members, however, is that membership is very simple and the company is expanding incredibly rapidly around the US. Most likely they coming to a city and town near you within the next twelve months (that is, if they are not already strongly established in your town!) For a nominal, lifetime membership fee almost any business can join. The rest of the costs involved with membership are minimal and predominantly pay-per-use transaction fees on purchases made.

No article concerning commerce would be totally complete without at least a slight mention of Uncle Sam. The days of tax-free barter went out the window in the 1980s when barter companies gained the same standing (third-party record keepers) as banks and credit card companies. All barter revenue is considered the same as cash as far as the IRS is concerned and all barter companies must issue 1099b forms to all members for tax reporting purposes.

The economic outlook still looks very bleak (both nationally and globally) and no educated person remotely believes an about-turn any time soon is even a concept. Dumping trillions of dollars into the pot can lead to only two certainties: higher inflation and a tax burden being passed along somewhere. It’s good news for Merchants Barter Exchange and their members, not too promising for those dependent upon the cash world, though.

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Investing Online is a popular topic currently, but online investments can easily swallow your head very fast in unpredictable market without knowing the other side of the coin.

 

There are many types of online investments that can surely prove significance to you but are there certain constraints. The popularity of online investment is rising & falling but it still has its importance. It can lead you to towards hell if implemented without right knowledge. You can brighten your financial future by investing online, but it is risky too.

 

If you are not confident enough about your thorough knowledge in online investment then you must start a Blog or a forum and you can also earn money from it by talking about the stock market indirectly without playing in the market. You can start collecting ideas and tips from reputed financial websites as well. In straight forward way, the advise is don’t make an debut in the market unless you are ready and confident enough to play the bad game.

 

Another idea: Gather the information, suggestions and ideas about online investment and then begin trading. You should be aware of some tips of stock market before investing. When you are risking your own money, you must understand the market and its tactics. Mutual Fund is a great online money investing idea with low risk and it has shown marvelous returns in the past. If you want to go for equity market that is enough risky, you should appoint a broker or relationship manager who can guide you and make your invested money worth.

 

The most important thing in online investment is you should do it because you enjoy, not because it is for maintaining component to your life. Investing in share market is always recommended as side business and not main business. There are also certain benefit of online investment, the major one is it can be done any time of any day.

 

When we talk about personal investment, the vast Internet activities have changed the scenario. Certain Investment clubs runs educational campaigns in-group and offers collaboration opportunities for personal investment. The current situation is you can comfortably place an order to buy or sell items by clicking from your personal computer at home. With the arrival of advanced technologies Online Investment is a great way for ordinary man to make a living from home. It is sad that many people are not aware of the fact that online investment is safe. The reason behind it is less number of people knows how to earn money smartly from it.

 

The bottom line is: there are numerous effective ways to make money by investing online, but the only thing needed is confidence, thorough knowledge and make sure to limit your focus to just one key area during online investment. It is rightly said don’t become “Jack of all trades, master of none”. There are many websites that give online investing ideas, hence do thorough research, focus your efforts on decided area and start smartly acting today.

 

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