Category — careers

Despite the current mortgage crisis in the U.S. and the fact that homeowner equity is at its lowest point since 1945, there are wealthy people buying multi-million dollar houses. As in $49 million for a 29-room townhouse. Wow.

Personally, I don’t know anyone with that kind of money but I have known a few millionaires over the years. In my mind, owning a million dollars in property is attainable, and it’s a starting point for more wealth. (My father used that base to build up to several million in property in the 1980s, though he overextended himself and lost a lot of it.) That’s my answer to “If I had a million dollars.”

But I wouldn’t buy a single home for a million dollars. Some options:
[Read more →]

One of the great benefits of the Internet is that small businesses focusing on a small niche stand a chance at success. That’s because, theoretically, it’s easier for them to find customers for their niche product, compared to, say, if they had a physical storefront in some small town. Or even a big city.

If their product is aimed at a relatively obscure market, then if the entire Internet-connected world is their potential customer base, it’s much easier to find enough customers. Enough to keep the business going, whereas a bricks-and-mortar equivalent might not make it.

How Many Customers Is Enough?

How many customers do you need, then? I can’t answer that and I won’t even try. But I will answer a related question. How many satisfied customers do you need to be successful on the Internet selling your product? Answer: 1,000. Or so says Kevin Kelly [via Business Opportunities, Performancing, Chris Garrett], in discussing how an artist can capitalize on the Long Tail phenomenon online. (That is, don’t try to please everyone. Focus on those who would appreciate your work the most.) [Read more →]

Attaining prosperity isn’t necessarily about making loads of money, though wealth is part of it. Working in a career job might get you there, but launching your own business and making it successful will get you there faster.

Shannon Cherry over at Startup Sparks asks about the characteristics of someone who creates a startup business. She lists five characteristics: being a risk taker, being smart, being a leader, having inner passion for the business, and being honest and trustworthy.

While I’d like to agree, unfortunately I’ve met some successful startup entrepreneurs who were not honest and trustworthy. Let’s hope that it’s true for most startup entrepreneurs, though.

Bootstrapper just posted a monster list of job boards, most of which are aimed at web workers. The list puts job boards into the following categories:

1. Online-specific boards.
2. Brick and mortar firms.
3. Job boards on blogs.
4. Staffing services and recruiting firms.
5. Government resources.
6. General job boards.
7. Just for freelancers.

Personally, I dislike online job boards. Nothing beats taking the weekend classifieds/ careers section of a newspaper and a red pen, then narrowing down the job search. Even after ten or so years, I have yet to come up with a way to use online job boards as efficiently as a big city newspaper. (Correspondingly, I found it harder and harder to find a job that suited me.) But that’s just me. I’m kind of old-school that way. But if you’re more modern than I am, you have lots of job boards to search.