Mobilize your life - Making money online

‘A-Ha’ Moment Launches a New Business
Aug 21, 2008 5:47pm
Community Spotlight

Andrew Simmons, an Elance employer and entrepreneur, is also a modern-day Sir Isaac Newton - you know - the guy who had an ‘a-ha’ moment when he accidentally discovered gravity by observing an apple fall from a tree? Similarly, Andrew had his own ‘a-ha’ moment that launched his lucrative business.

“I was creating a tiled mural design of Venus painted by Botticelli for my bathroom, and had the tiled pattern on the floor of my living room. A friend came over and thought it was cool - he started telling people about the tiled design,” said Andrew.

Soon thereafter, Andrew’s phone started ringing off the hook, with friends wanting to know how he created the tiled design so they could create their own murals. That’s when the light bulb went off in Andrew’s head. He turned to Elance to find an experienced provider to create software that would automate the tile design process.

“I didn’t know how to write software,” said Andrew. “But I posted the project on Elance, picked a firm, and they quickly delivered the first version of the tile design application.”

With the software, TileCreator, completed and ready for sale, Andrew went to a tradeshow to reach customers. TileCreator was well received, but at the initial price of $69.95, people thought the software was too good to be true: ‘At that price, how could the software have all of those features?’ they remarked.

“So I went to a nearby Kinko’s, made flyers for a new piece of software called TileCreatorPro, and said it was $250 … the software starting selling like crazy,” said Andrew.

With a new promised version to deliver to paying customers, Andrew turned again to Elance to create a ‘Pro’ version of TileCreator. Fast forward several years and more than $1 million in total software sales - Andrew now sells several different versions of the original TileCreator software through his own website, Tiger Direct (who also own Infoteldistributers) and several other retailer websites.

You might think that with TileCreator sold in more than 30 countries and seven additional unique software titles in his company library, that Andrew has a legion of employees to keep his company running. To the contrary – ThoughtFish Media operates as a virtual company, with four full-time virtual staff and several part-time elancers located all over the world.

“I don’t think I could have launched Thoughtfish Media without Elance and without the internet,” said Andrew. “Elance is ideal because it allows me to automate every aspect of my business. This means I can keep my day job and regular life, and just keep up to date on the business whenever my Blackberry dings with a new order.”

story taken from Elance.com

One of my most interesting sites this year for me is the Success stories in China business. I have hand picked an interesting Dutch couple - because I live in Holland right now - that moved to China to start an internship business in Shanghai.

Starting anything other than a service related business in China is hard as the people in China generally do not have too much expendable income. Most of the population are satisfied with "it'll do the job" rather than "wow thats so high quality it'll last all year!".

Services however that centre around promoting the WEST have much more appeal.
I have several very good ideas that I'd start in a flash if I was allowed into China.

There is a website called PhotoStock - one of my fav's.

It's a place where businesses can go to look through images specifically for purchasing for commercial use.

On this site belongs a fellow photographer Ryan Cardone who sold an image of his flippers sticking out of the water on a blue sky day.

Ryan got $8000 for his picture and was probably used by a large traveling firm.

Thinking of starting a business in Japan?
Well here is a quick success story from one American Entrepreneur who started a business along side having a Job in Japan.
I hope you enjoy our success stories and look forward to receiving any news of more stories you have spotted out there.

It seems that the UK is a breeding ground for "chavs" and now entrepreneurs. Away from the bigger cities there is a place called Shropshire which is a county where people have to make their own way in life. Take a not from these guys who range from 13+ how to start a successful business.
please read on another inspirational story ...here...

Recently my close friend has been getting started with Site build it. I'm very excited to learn how his attempts turn out as he is about to quit his Job and go full time on his website in the USA.

Site build it is a very good pay for use platform with 100% money back Guarantee if you don't get the results you want within a certain period of time.

This is a real site that gives people real results - for the novice or the learner or the newbie, there is nothing like this out there that achieves the results of SBI.



If you'd like to see further info from the SBI site then take a further look into HOW SBI WORKS?

I know how hard it is sometimes for new start ups, budding newbie Entrepreneurs and people wanting to start their own business.

I also noticed how much of a difference having a goal ca make - but it's not only having that goal that changes your state of mind, it's mentally preparing for the reality of that goal to come true.

This in my opinion is the "Secret" that most people talk about - in a sense your aligning your being and state of mind with that of success.

Recently I have a very good chance receiving a new direction in life and my whole entire persona and sense of worth and feeling were given a boost, after I had to turn the opportunity down I noticed that feeling gradually slipping away.

Happiness and positivity are impossible to hold onto unless you just simply think and believe. you can test this by ...

imagine your self about to walk into a University lecture theater and give an announcement to hundreds of people about your business

... now prepare for it mentally and the positive benefits you get from it are amazing.



Set Goals - Think about them - Put yourself in their REALITY - Prepare for action.
This may well seem like Childs play but in my opinion we have a lot to learn from the way we were as children.

Why do it at all when others do it better ... ?

This guy Top PR Websites has put together a wonderful list of websites where you can find cheap PR.

His webisite is also a blog about Free Publicity in general, it's really worth a quick look or an in depth read ... you choose.

I had a dream once - and that dream was to get all the current Entrepreneurs and the the wanna be Entrepreneurs in ONE place so they can help each other out and at the time promote their own business.

Well guess what - i didn't do it ... so someone else did :|

not to worry they did a really good job - the site is so simple and free of mind brakes and useless clutter.

Another simple to use straight forward site which provides incentives to start and positive thinking to help you break through the block of fear you might have about going into business.

A relatively new way of making your websites and blogs much more interesting and possibly helping with your profit streams is Podcasting.

There are many PAY services - but here are my two favourite FREE services, you might even GET paid to host your own.

As usual I really like the BIG and EASY and FREE web designs, something easy on the eyes and brain. The YouTubes of the podcasting world are here.

Firstly there is Podango: Contents: Introduction - Grow - Share - Earn - Sponsor.
we insert adverts at the beginning and end.

Secondly we have MyPodCast: Contents: Recording - Publish - Airtime. We makes spaces where you can put adverts in.

I have just come across one of my favourite websites so far - only for it's simplicty ease of use and honesty.
Introducing Franchisegator holding Franchises through USA and UK on different sites mind.
Also a new site, very intuitive Frachise-expo.

You will find out that good business opportunities take a lot of investment capital to start, but this site makes no secret of that fact.

Go and have a look at what kind of things are out there a the moment.

Here is something simple to make you smile :D
and laugh :D:D
Let it inspire you to kick ask yourself ....

now get back to work :)

It's about time I wrote about this site dear readers. If you have an idea or your a budding inventor but don't really know how to get started launching your product to the world, then this site is the perfect answer. Based in America, Design my idea has made already some big dents into the trading market.

They will help you throughout the whole design process and even if you can't do a certain bit of the product development stage these guys will even step in and help you out.

Definitely worth a look

Other places such as Trever Baylis will offer help for different stages of the design process at fixed prices, you pay for an evaluation first and then they work out how they can help you.

These guys at the world invention centre are more focused on getting you started with a web page and some patent help. All good ideas, they also have a monthly subscription fee.

Here is a a bonus link for a nice magazine style site called Inventors Digest and another nice easy to access blog style site called Inventor spot.

if this guy can do it - so can you!
This is probably the single biggest piece of hopeful evidence that should litterally FORCE you to try to do something on your own.

This is the exact same thing Timothy Ferris is talking about when he says welcome to age of the New Rich (NR).



It is honorable and quite impressive what Ryan has done, now you see what you can set up if you just DO IT ...
but the thing is in this case, even I can see he just has a few good strings to his bow, a few good acronyms and a few good men, a few good stories and an understanding of what YouTube is.

He makes money because businesses simply do not realise the power in the internet and all the free available marketing techniques which are not taught at any university as yet.

I have a post on all the web 2.0 platforms a few weeks back - take a read of that and get out there and post up some profiles. That's where the people are.