Starting an offline business
Starting and operating a website to make money is a great business model. You can run it from wherever you want and you never have to deal with your customers face to face. It’s the whole principle on what this working nomad website is based.
A web based business is typically less risky than an offline business, but there are still some real risks, which could potentially dry up your income overnight - Google could stop sending you traffic, your Adsense account could be banned or your best earning affiliate could close its doors to affiliate sales.
It is these reasons that I have always wanted to have some kind of non-internet related business that could help support my income. After I moved to Bali, I started thinking about buying a hotel or restaurant. I looked at a number of places, but it seemed like such a huge expense for not a lot of return and then you have the problems of dealing with staff and customers.
While looking for potential hotels or restaurants, I kept meeting more people who had properties they wanted to sell. I saw an opening for a potential business to sell property, so I registered a domain and installed the open source property software, Open Realty. My girlfriend has been taking the pictures and uploading the properties for sale.
Last week we got a customer who was interested in buying one of our properties and this weekend they put a deposit on a place. It’s pretty amazing because I had hardly started promoting our website - Lovina Property.
We worked with an existing agent and split the commission on the sale. We are now thinking it will be worth it to form a company and even rent an office.
The last couple of years I have only been concentrating on making money from Adsense and affiliate programs. I am just starting to see the huge potential if you can combine your SEO and internet marketing skills with a regular business.
