There is no out-of-the-box solution to making money:
Hope this is not one of those posts repeating something that I have already said clearly, although it is probably worth repeating. So, we all know that there are a lot of get-rich-quick scams out there on the net and I guess to some extent most of us are immune (hopefully). However, the question remains, is there a way to make money online out of the box? Well the short answer is no for one main reason, out of the box means easy with no work. If it’s that easy, everyone would do it, and by proxy, it probably wouldn’t work anymore.
I’m not trying to say that everything has to be complex to work, but I can guarantee you that if you point and click it is unlikely to produce results on its own. That’s not to say that simple ideas can’t be part of a much larger plan for making money, for example:
WordPress CMS, 5 minutes and you have a website.
Inexpensive web hosting that allows configure and click to configure.
Contacting other webmasters to promote your site takes time, but it’s simple.
The point is, I keep seeing people starting these out-of-the-box eCommerce sites selling the exact same products for the same prices as everyone else, why bother? Everyone seems to think “Internet” is a magic keyword that translates to instant money. You look at some of the most successful internet businesses, and while the infrastructure they used was straightforward, the concept and idea was unique and original.
I really think that in order to put together a collection of ideas that work, you have to try a lot of things that don’t work. This is also another stumbling block, as the fear of failure can be a major obstacle for anyone starting a business on the net.
Also on a somewhat unrelated note, I wanted to post this awesome Kevin Rose video that I found. This is one of a series where he interviews successful entrepreneurs and tries to decipher their methods. It’s quite long but I promise it’s worth watching, the only problem with these kind of videos is that they can be quite addicting, information overload can be a real problem!