How to Build a Startup The Lean LaunchPad

In an introduction to the basics of the famous Customer Development Process, Steve Blank provides insight into the key steps needed to build a successful startup.
The main idea in this course is learning how to rapidly develop and test ideas by gathering massive amounts of customer and marketplace feedback. Many startups fail by not validating their ideas early on with real-life customers. In order to mitigate that, students will learn how to get out of the building and search for the real pain points and unmet needs of customers. Only with these can the entrepreneur find a proper solution and establish a suitable business model.
Building a startup is not simply building an execution plan for a business model that the entrepreneur thinks will work, but rather, a search for the actual business model itself.

Why Take This Course?

You will learn the business skills it takes to bring your idea from conception to market. These include:

• Actively listening and engaging your customers to find out what exactly they want in your product and how you should deliver it to them
• Gathering, evaluating and using customer feedback to make your product, marketing, and business model stronger
• Engaging your customers through the three phases of the customer relationship management lifecycle: get, keep, and grow
• Identifying key resources, partners, activities, and distribution channels required to deliver your product to your customer
• Calculating your direct and indirect costs for delivering your product

Prerequisites and Requirements

This class involves no programming. The characteristics of a budding entrepreneur: passion, tenacity, and a willingness to work hard, are essential.
We also recommend you join the class with at least a rough idea of a business model for a startup you would like to work on throughout this class.

See the Technology Requirements for using Udacity.

What Will I Learn?

Projects

Talk to customers, build a Business Model Canvas, prototype your product and pitch to coaches.

Syllabus

Lesson 1: What We Now Know

• History of the Corporation
• Startups Are Not Smaller Versions of Large Companies
• Waterfall Development
• Customer vs. Product Development
• Entrepreneurial Education

Lessons 1.5A and 1.5B: Business Models and Customer Development

• Value Proposition
• Customer Segments
• Revenue Streams
• Key Resources
• Customer Development Processes
• Minimum Viable Product
• Market Opportunity Analysis

Lesson 2: Value Proposition

• Value Proposition and the Minimum Viable Product
• Customer Archetype
• MVP Physical && Web/Mobile
• Common Mistakes With Value Proposition

Lesson 3: Customer Segments

• Product Market Fit
• Rank and Day in the Life
• Multiple Customer Segments
• Market Types Introduction: Existing, Resegmented, New, Clone
• Consequences of Not Understanding a Market

Lesson 4: Channels

• Distribution Channels Overview
• Web Distribution
• Physical Distribution
• Direct Channel Fit
• Indirect Channel Economics
• OEM Channel Economics

Lesson 5: Customer Relationships

• Paid Demand Creation
• Earned Demand Creation
• Get Physical
• Viral Loop
• Web Customer Acquisition Costs

Lesson 6: Revenue Models

• How Do You Make Money
• Revenue Streams and Price
• Direct and Ancillary Models
• Common Startup Mistakes
• Market Types and Pricing
• Single and Multiple Side Markets
• Revenue First Companies
• Market Size and Share

Lesson 7: Partners

• Partner Definition
• Partner Resources
• Partner Types
• Greatest Strategic Alliance
• Joint Business Development

Lesson 8: Resources, Activities and Costs

• Four Critical Resources
• Financial Resources
• Human Resources
• Qualified Employees and Culture
• Intellectual Property Overview

Access Course Materials

Free

What you get

Instructor videos

Learn by doing exercises and view project instructions

25 Killer Sites For Free Online Business Courses.

 

What would you do with an MBA from Harvard or a certification in internet marketing? As tuition costs rise and it becomes increasingly difficult for high school graduates to attend 4 year colleges and universities, talented and skilled graduates are looking for alternatives to earning a bachelors degree. With the rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and ecommerce websites, education is becoming more accessible and affordable for those looking for an alternate path.
Ready for the cherry on top? You can take top courses from universities like Harvard and Yale and you don’t have to pay a penny.
Here are 25 Killer Sites For Free Online Business Courses:

1) High-Impact Business Writing

What’s in it for you?
“Effective writing is a powerful tool in the business environment. Learn how to articulate your thoughts in a clear and concise manner that will allow your ideas to be better understood by your readers. Improve your business writing skill by learning to select and use appropriate formats for your audience, use the correct medium and adjust your writing style accordingly, as well as identify your objective and communicate it clearly. You’ll also learn to spot, correct and avoid the most common writing pitfalls, and gain valuable experience analyzing, writing and revising a wide spectrum of business documents. From a simple interoffice memo to a twenty-page business proposal, learn how to put good business writing to work for you.”
Course Duration: 4 weeks, Class begins on April 6, 2015
Provider: Coursera 
Link to course: High-Impact Business Writing

2) Design Thinking for Business Innovation

What’s in it for you?
“Design thinking is a popular new idea in the business world – organizations as diverse as entrepreneurial start-ups, big established corporations, and government and social service organizations are experimenting with design thinking as an alternative approach to traditional problem-solving. Accelerated by the spectacular rise of Apple and IDEO, design thinking is seen as offering a new approach better suited for dealing with the accelerating pressures for growth and innovation faced by so many organizations today. But design thinking can remain mysterious for people interested in introducing this approach into their decision-making processes. Demystifying it is the focus of this course.”
Course Duration: 4 weeks, Class begins on Feb. 15, 2015
Provider: Coursera
Link to course: Design Thinking for Business Innovation

3) Launch a No Fail Business Model

What’s in it for you?
You will learn to define the why of your business, how to model success, and create your “Frakenbiz” (your class project). The course is taught by Joe Fairless.
Course Duration: 43 minutes, open enrollment
Provider: Skillshare
Link to course: Launch a No Fail Business Model

4) Business Development For Startups and Tech Companies

What’s in it for you?
Companies explode when they crack the code to business development. The challenge is only a very small percentage of people actually know what they’re doing when it comes to achieving massive, scalable growth through the business development. This course was created to change that and has only been available amongst a private, group of elite Business Development professionals until now… By the end of this training you will be armed with breakout business development cunning and an arsenal of proven tactics for every situation you’ll face. This course is taught by Scott Britton.
Course Duration: 9 hours and 28 minutes, open enrollment
Provider: Skillshare
Link to course: Business Development For Startups and Tech Companies

5) WordPress Essentials for Business

What’s in it for you?
“The course covers almost all of the WordPress user interface. We learn by doing as we build out an actual website for a client of ours, explaining and demonstrating key concepts along the way, such as themes, plugins, widgets, images, etc. Students should download the project files from http://wpacademy.com/essentials and then follow the tutorial on their own website, repeating the keystrokes and mouse sequences as they build out their own site. You can expect to walk away from this training with an attractive website and a solid understanding of WordPress fundamentals.” This course is taught by Marc Beneteau.
Course Duration: 90 minutes, open enrollment
Provider: Udemy
Link to course: WordPress Essentials for Business

6) Beginning Twitter for Professionals Course

What’s in it for you?
“OpenSesame’s Kelly Meeker has created a step-by-step informational online training course to help you get started in all things Twitter. The course includes a tour of the Twitter interface, tips on creating great tweets and suggestions for building a strong Twitter network. After you complete this course you should have a better understanding as to how you can use the basics of Twitter for professional purposes and to better your business.”
Course Duration: 7 minutes
Provider: OpenSesame
Link to course: Beginning Twitter for Professionals Course

7) How to Build a Startup

What’s in it for you?
“In an introduction to the basics of the famous Customer Development Process, Steve Blank provides insight into the key steps needed to build a successful startup. The main idea in this course is learning how to rapidly develop and test ideas by gathering massive amounts of customer and marketplace feedback. Many start-ups fail by not validating their ideas early on with real-life customers. In order to mitigate that, students will learn how to get out of the building and search for the real pain points and unmet needs of customers. Only with these can the entrepreneur find a proper solution and establish a suitable business model.”
Course Duration: 4 weeks, open enrollment
Provider: Udacity
Link to course: How to Build a Startup

8) Website Performance Optimization

What’s in it for you?
“From Ilya Grigorik’s High Performance Browser Networking: ‘The emergence and the fast growth of the web performance optimization (WPO) industry within the past few years is a telltale sign of the growing importance and demand for speed and faster user experiences by the users. And this is not simply a psychological need for speed in our ever accelerating and connected world, but a requirement driven by empirical results, as measured with respect to the bottom-line performance of the many online businesses: faster sites lead to better user engagement, faster sites lead to better user retention, faster sites lead to higher conversions. Simply put, speed is a feature.’”
Course Duration: 1 week, open enrollment
Provider: Udacity, powered by Google
Link to course: Website Performance Optimization

9) Entrepreneurship 101: Who is your customer?

What’s in it for you?
“You will learn, through the stories of MIT entrepreneurs, how to go from idea or technology to the necessary understanding of who and why will want to buy your product.  Specifically, you will learn how to identify prospective customers, interview them, and finally, select the right customers for your business. Course assignments will be real-life exercises that will guide you through a series of concrete, practical, and effective steps that will help you make your idea very real.”
Course Duration: 12 weeks, Class begins on December 2, 2014
Provider: edX
Link to course: Entrepreneurship 101: Who is your customer?

10) An Introduction to Credit Risk Management

What’s in it for you?
“This course offers you an introduction to credit risk modelling and hedging. We will approach credit risk from the point of view of banks, but most of the tools and models we will overview can be beneficial at the corporate level as well. At the end of the course, you will be able to understand and correctly use the basic tools of credit risk management, both from a theoretical and, most of all, a practical point of view. This will be a quite unconventional course. For each methodology, we will analyse its strengths as well as its weaknesses. We will do this in a rigorous way, but also with fun: there is no need to be boring.”
Course Duration: 8 weeks, class begins in April 2015
Provider: edX
Link to course: An Introduction to Credit Risk Management

11) Engaging with Innovation Ecosystems: The Corporate Perspective

What’s in it for you?
“This course is aimed at corporate executives and senior managers who need to generate new growth opportunities from external innovation by engaging with “innovation ecosystems” around the world. We will show how to assess the relevance of and design various types of programs that corporations can implement to engage with their innovation ecosystem: prize competitions, hackathons, accelerators, commercialization programs etc., taking a series of deep dives into how leading corporations have used these programs internally and externally to drive growth. This course draws heavily on the findings of MIT’s groundbreaking and unique Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP), which brings together cities, regions and countries to study and learn from MIT research and from each other how to create and grow a successful innovation-based regional economy.”
Course Duration: Class starts in July 2015, open enrollment
Provider: edX
Link to course: Engaging with Innovation Ecosystems: The Corporate Perspective

12) 21 Days to Building a Web Business

What’s in it for you?
“21 Steps To Building A Web Business is ALISON’S free online course covering the skills and techniques needed to create a successful online business. Chris Farrell, voted Number 1 Internet Marketing Service Provider, describes the process of developing an online business in a non-technical and step-by-step manner. The course is ideal for those who’ve always wanted to create an online business but lack the skills or knowledge to do so.”
Course Duration: 21 days, open enrollment.
Provider: Alison
Link to course: 21 Days to Building a Web Business

13) Diploma in Business Management & Entrepreneurship

What’s in it for you?
“This free online Diploma in Business Management and Entrepreneurship course gives you the opportunity to gain extensive knowledge and understanding of the principles and practices behind key business management subjects. Subjects include corporate management, operations management, accounting, human resources, financial accounting, and project management as well providing insight on key entrepreneurial skills from Bill Liao, co-founder of the social networking site XING.com. This Diploma course is ideal for those who want to further their knowledge and understanding of business management and entrepreneurship, and will greatly enhance your career prospects.”
Course Duration: Open enrollment, self paced.
Provider: Alison
Link to course: Diploma in Business Management & Entrepreneurship

14) Fundamentals of Business Law

What’s in it for you?
“This course reviews important principles found in business law. These principles include details on sole proprietorship, general partnerships, limited partnerships and incorporations. This course explains principles of business law in a clear and easy to understand way. The course also covers topics such as legal requirements, legal recommendations, financial status, taxation, and liability related to these principles. This free online course will be of interest to business professionals and students of law who would like a greater knowledge and understanding of laws relating to business and commerce.”
Course Duration: Open enrollment, self paced.
Provider: Alison
Link to course: Fundamentals of Business Law

15) Diploma in Business Process Management

What’s in it for you?
“Major advances in technology have resulted in the widespread implementation of information systems into businesses and organisations. The management of processes and data is critical to the overall success of a business. This free online Diploma course introduces the learner to business processes and their management. The course will explain business intelligence and knowledge management systems, systems analysis, systems design and systems implementation. This course will also give learners a basic knowledge and understanding of how to design, test and implement information systems for a business process. This Diploma course will be of great interest to business professionals, as well as any learner wanting to expand their knowledge and understanding of business process management.
Course Duration: Open enrollment, self paced.
Provider: Alison
Link to course: Diploma in Business Process Management

16) Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship: Pitching Your Business and Yourself

What’s in it for you?
Find out what makes a great entrepreneur from Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran.
Course Duration: 42 minutes
Provider: Skillshare
Link to course: Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship: Pitching Your Business and Yourself

17) Pinterest for Business: How to Get More Traffic and Sales with Pinterest

What’s in it for you?
“By now you’ve probably hear of Pinterest and all the success online businesses are having with it. You’ve probably heard about how it drives massive traffic. How businesses are using Pinterest to generate massive online sales. How businesses are leveraging Pinterest to better serve their current customers. You want to have that massive success with Pinterest too! The problem is, you don’t know where to start.. Or, maybe you’ve played around with Pinterest and still don’t see what the fuss is about. This course is your step-by-step guide to Pinterest success. No matter your current experience with Pinterest, this course will unlock the secrets of Pinterest and who you how to leverage it for your business.”
Course Duration: 3 hours and 24 minutes, self paced, open enrollment
Provider: Skillshare
Link to course: Pinterest for Business: How to Get More Traffic and Sales with Pinterest

18) Beginning Facebook for Business

What’s in it for you?
“With over one billion users, Facebook has come to the forefront in popular social media applications. Now more than ever, businesses and companies are using Facebook as a platform to display essential updates and messages for their target audience. Max DuBowy, a content specialist at OpenSesame, has created a beginning course for businesses to maximize their marketing strategy and approach using Facebook. This course provides businesses with simple and easy to understand Facebook functions and tools. Getting started on Facebook and creating a page is compelling because its free. If your business is struggling to remain in the presence of your audience, try incorporating a Facebook page to approach your target audience. Use the specific applications and tips covered in this course and your business will be visible to Facebook users around the world.”
Course Duration: 10 minutes
Provider: OpenSesame
Link to course: Beginning Facebook for Business

19) Foundations of Business Strategy

What’s in it for you?
“Strategic analysis is critical for analyzing the competitive context in which an organization operates and for making reasoned and reasonable recommendations for how that organization should position itself and what actions it should take to maximize value creation. In this course, we will explore the underlying theory and frameworks that provide the foundations of a successful business strategy. Managers, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, analysts, and consultants all may find value in mastering these fundamentals.”
Course Duration: 6 hours, self paced
Provider: Udemy
Link to course: Foundations of Business Strategy

20) University of The People, Business Administration

What’s in it for you?
“The Business Administration Program offers broad exposure to business administration and economics. Behavioral and quantitative sciences are studied in both theoretical and applied contexts. Mathematics is used as a key tool in the analysis of complex problems and in the interpretation of data. Emphasis is placed on effective written communication. Students are made aware of the need for imaginative, innovative solutions to business problems that encompass human needs and ethical objectives.”
Course Duration: Open enrollment, must apply to be accepted into the Business Administration Program. The application is on the University of The People’s website.
Provider: University of The People
Link to course: University of The People, Business Administration

21) Building a Business

What’s in it for you?
“Building a Business is a lecture series designed to teach the fundamentals of developing a business. Each lecture provides practical information and examples to identify key aspects of successful entrepreneurship. These ppodcasts are the lecture video recordings registered at the Said Business School in Oxford, United Kingdom.”
Course Duration: 27+ hours worth of lectures, open enrollment. Self paced.
Provider: University of Oxford, iTunes University.
Link to course: Building a Business

22) Corporate Finance

What’s in it for you?
“In my (biased) view, Corporate finance is the ultimate big picture class. It lays out the financial principles that govern how businesses, small or large, public or private, should make choices (and decisions). In particular, it looks at how businesses should allocate scarce resources (the investment decision), where they should raise the funds to makes these investments (the financing decision) and how much cash to leave in (and take out of) businesses (the dividend decision). This class focuses on the big picture, while paying attention to the details that matter, and is designed to be an introductory class for MBAs. Anyone who has had exposure to accounting and basic statistics will be be access and use the material.”
Course Duration: 30+ hours worth of lectures, open enrollment. Self paced.
Provider: New York University on iTunes, open enrollment.
Link to course: Corporate Finance

23) How to Develop Breakthrough Products and Services

What’s in it for you?
This course has 4 lectures delivered by professor Eric von Hippel.
Course Duration: 4+ hours worth of lectures, open enrollment. Self Paced.
Provider: MIT Open Courseware on iTunes
Link to course: How to Develop Breakthrough Products and Services

24) Valuation (Online Class)

What’s in it for you?
“Valuation is a key tool in almost every aspect of finance – corporate finance, investing and portfolio management. Understanding it is essential to not just bankers, analysts and appraisers, but the rest of us who get to see the products and are sometimes are targets of their work. This is an entirely online version of my MBA valuation class that is designed for someone who wants to understand the valuation process and its inputs, but does not have the time nor the inclination to sit through 80-minutes sessions. It is constructed in three parts, with the first a series of short webcasts on the concepts that underlie valuation, the second a collection of in-practice webcasts on the mechanics of putting the concepts into use and the third an ongoing series of my valuations of companies.”
Course Duration: 4+ hours worth of lectures, open enrollment. Self paced.
Provider: New York University on iTunes
Link to course: Valuation (Online Class)

25) Writing for Strategic Communication

What’s in it for you?
“Writing for Strategic Communication is part of La Trobe University’s Bachelor of Strategic Communication degree. It is about writing strategically as a specialist vocation but is equally applicable to developing written strategic communication skills to use in organisational life, irrespective of your job role. From tweeting to speechwriting, it provides an overview of various forms of professional writing including writing for traditional media and writing for web and social media. Students are encouraged to explore the concept of ‘great writing’ as a construct for understanding the power of words and developing their own writing skills.”
Course Duration: 4+ hours worth of lectures, open enrollment. Self-paced.
Provider: La Trobe University on iTunes
Link to course: Design Thinking for Business Innovation
 

8 Tools to Start an Online Business without Breaking the Bank.

 

Deep down, you know you want this. You want to taste the freedom that other entrepreneurs have. You want to follow your passion and hopefully also make a living at it. You want to…start an online business.
But here’s the thing: Instead of jumping on the bandwagon to start an online business, make sure you do your homework first. Most people launch a product and market it later. Big mistake!
You want to do the opposite – study the market first, launch next. How? Since it’s going to be an online business, start looking at online forums, comment sections of your competitor sites and what people are searching in Google (using Google Keyword Tool).
Once you pass stage one successfully, you can think about launching a website/product/service. That’s where the real magic happens.
Here’s what comes next:

• Writing content
• Starting a blog
• Having a presence on social media
• Establishing an expert status for yourself
• Email marketing
• Outsourcing tasks you don’t have the time or inclination for
• Following influencers closely
• Launching a product or paid service

The list is unending.
It’s easy to get burned out in the sea of tasks and strategies when starting an online business. Thankfully, there are tools available to help you get off the hamster wheel and launch a successful online business.
The best part? You don’t have to spend a fortune on these tools. Here are eight tools to start an online business without breaking the bank: 

1. Hostt

An online business needs a website domain name and space to “host it”. Hosting is an ongoing expense for your business and it usually incurs a monthly cost with an option to pay it upfront on a yearly basis.
And that’s where Hostt.com is revolutionizing the hosting world. What I love about Hostt is that it offers free hosting for all your websites. They also have a 24/7 tech support and a cpanel that makes website management quick and painless.
There is no catch – no ads. The hosting is 100% free. They only ask you to have one domain name with them (which costs $13.95 a year).

2. WordPress/Shopify

Once your website is set up and hosted, you’re ready to install a CMS or a platform on which your web pages and content will sit.
WordPress, originally a blogging platform, is the most popular solution in existence today. Most top bloggers use and recommend WordPress. The best part? It’s free to use.
Once you have your website hosted (see #1 above), your hosting company’s cpanel should let you install WordPress using the “1-click install” functionality.
WordPress is great for any type of website; but, if you want to create mainly an e-commerce store (in other words, an online store with a checkout shopping cart), you have better options out there.
Although WordPress is pretty flexible and a full-blown CMS now, it was originally built for blogging, not for e-commerce purposes. If you predict having a large product catalog and lots of e-commerce relevant features, try a service such as Shopify.
Most e-commerce experts will advise you against WordPress for an online store. Shopify is highly customizable, robust and affordable for a professional shopping cart. There are other alternatives available in the marker too, so make sure you do your research before launching a web-store.

3. BuzzSumo

Once you have a platform ready, you need content. And not just any content but good, solid content one that your readers find educative, interesting and engaging.
BuzzSumo is a neat little tool that analyzes what works for your readers. It helps you find content and topics that will do best for your type of audience.
Just open their webpage and enter your main keywords in the top search bar. You can also add a domain name to see what’s working well for them.
BuzzSumo returns a list of articles with the number of shares (so you know what is popular and can get ideas from those topics for your own website).
Super-helpful from SEO perspective also. So go on, give it a try!

4. MailChimp

But you can’t just stop after creating juicy content. The next step in line is to promote your content and one of the best ways to do it is email marketing.
Mailchimp is an email newsletter service that is used by more than 7 million people. You can get started with their “free forever” plan if you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers and send less than 12,000 emails per month (which is very likely when you’re starting out).
To get add-ons such as autoresponders and delivery by time zones, you can upgrade for as little as $10 per month. I’ve been using MailChimp for years now for my own websites and that of my clients, and have no regrets.

5. Buffer

Apart from promoting content and educating your readers via email, you can also use social media to share and push your new posts out there.
Buffer is a nice little tool to schedule all your posts across different social media. The clean and easy to use interface is one of the reasons it’s so popular. What I personally love is their “Suggestions” tab on the dashboard.
Buffer scours the web for best posts on other websites that you can instantly use to share with your own followers. When I’m low on the shareable content reserve, this feature is super-handy – all I have to do is read the suggested article and (if I like it) click the link to share or schedule it for my own channels.

6. ClickMeeting

If you are in a freelance/service-provider business model like I am, you have a constant need to communicate with your clients or collaborate with your team all over the world.
ClickMeeting is a platform to meet and record audio and video conferencing with your clients (for up to 25 participants). It’s perfect for briefing and presentation purposes. You can also brand all your meetings and impress your clients like a pro. Plus, they have a translation service if you’re exploring international markets.
They also offer a sister-product called ClickWebinar to conduct virtual trainings (for up to 1,000 participants) and webinars with your audience.

7. FancyHands

Let’s face it – despite all the tools in the world, you will still need external help. That’s where services such as FancyHands come into picture.
FancyHands brings you a team of virtual assistants who can do a lot of things at less than $1 a day, if you’re using their basic plan that costs $29.99/mo.
Here are some services for which people have requested in the past (as per the company’s website):
 My co-worker is in the hospital after a bad car accident. Can you call the gift shop there and ask them if they sell fun things to do to pass the time that they could send in a gift basket type of thing to him? Crossword puzzles, trashy magazines, stuff like that. I’d like to spend about $50. If they don’t do that sort of thing, please find a place that can.
Please make a lunch reservation at Barolo under my name for Friday at 1pm and call Jennifer Wilson’s office and let her know that the meeting is confirmed. Please add it to my schedule as well.
Please fill me in on the top 5 trending topics on Twitter today, both worldwide and locally in Los Angeles.
A fun way to get your time back, right?

8. Xoom

I saved the best for last – getting paid. Xoom is a perfect alternative to Paypal. Where Paypal is notorious for charging hefty transaction fees (try this calculator to find how much you’re being charged), Xoom charges a flat fee of $4.99 for up to $2,999.
With their 24/7 customer support and faster money transfers, Xoom is one of the easiest ways to send money.

Your Turn

Are you starting an online business? Which one of the above tools is your favorite? Would you like to add more? Tells us your thoughts in the comments below!

15 Easy Ways For Everyone To Make Money With Social Media.

 

Even though it’s a relatively new industry, there are already a number of ways to make money with social media. Every major social media outlet has in some way helped users turn their hobby into a business or turn their business into a bigger business. Here are 15 common ways people make money with social media.

1. Tantalize Customers With Your Product On Pinterest

Small businesses can benefit in big ways from getting users to “pin” photos of their items on to their Pinterest boards. Create an account, engage in the community by pinning other people’s photos and upload photos that entice people to buy your product.

2. Run An Online Instagram Shop

If you have items that would be attractive to Instagram users, it’s relatively pain-free to set up a shop by connecting your account to the service inSelly. WikiHow has a great guide walking you through all the steps.

3. Copywriting

Twitter and Facebook can be great ways to show off your language and grammar skills. Prove yourself to be adept in the language of your choice to get yourself hired to write for a living.

4. Editing

Editors in particular have found success marketing themselves on social media, since services like Twitter and Facebook are great proofs of concept for their skills with the written word

5. Manage Social Media

There are a lot of companies seeking someone to handle their social media presence. Sadly a fair share of those positions are internships, but there are also many paid opportunities out there. Search “social media” on job boards to find results in your area.

6. Comedy Writing

A lot of new comedians birthed their career on Twitter. 140 character jokes or funny insights can gain you a lot of attention, so if you’re a particularly clever wordsmith consider giving comedy a shot to make money with social media.

7. Creative Writing

Fantasy author Neil Gaiman broke ground with A Calendar of Tales, for which he asked his large Twitter following to submit questions and turned some of their answers into short stories. You can do something similar that involves interacting with your audience, or even serialize a whole novel or short story over many posts.

8. Airbnb

Anyone can become a renter via Airbnb, which gives users a chance to rent places to stay in 190 different countries. Fast Company has a great write-up on how someone made a six-figure income through Airbnb.

9. Monetize A YouTube Channel

Not only can you make money with social media, you can turn yourself into a phenomenon. Just ask Grace Helbig, who’s developed a large audience through the hilarious videos she posts every week. She makes a significant sum just off ad revenue from her YouTube channel.

10. Become An Amazon Affiliate

When you join Amazon’s Affiliate Program, any sales made from a link you provide to Amazon will net you a small percentage. Cultivate a following and promote specific items on your blog, then include an affiliate link to the item on Amazon so that when a follower purchases something you’ll get paid.

11. Promote Posts

Get your sales pitches in front of more eyeballs with promoted posts, available through almost any social media service. It’ll cost you a little cash, sure, but it could net you huge rewards.

12. Sell Your Art

Tumblr and Instagram (Tumblr especially) are great places to post original artwork and get a lot of responses and shares. If your art starts going viral, you can turn that interest into income by selling prints and other merchandise through an online store like Etsy or Big Cartel.

13. Sell Rights To Your Photos

If you take good enough photos, people will pay you to use them! Flickr is a popular place to view photos, and this WikiHow explains how to sell the photos you’ve posted there. You can also license them under Creative Commons, which won’t net you any money but will expose your photographs to a wider audience.

14. Demonstrate Your Musical Abilities On SoundCloud

SoundCloud is one of the best places to get your music noticed, and I’m not just talking about the near-impossible goal of becoming a rock star. If you know how to come up with a catchy jingle, you can post it on SoundCloud to get clients flocking to you to create music for their commercials, radio ads, etc.

15. Innovate

These are just the known ways to make money with social media. The field is so new that many more avenues are likely to open up in the future. Consider how you can utilize social media services to grow your career or even create a new one altogether!

30 Interesting And Scam Free Ways To Make Money Online

 

I’ve seen the scams and been blessed by discovering legitimate ways to make money online.
Here are 30 unique ways to earn some cash via the Internet:

1. Amazon: Publish your own Kindle books

Real people who love writing and marketing are finding that they can publish their own digital books directly to Amazon using their Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Take for instance blogger Thomas Strock, who made $6,716.05 in one month alone from all his Kindle books. Not bad for an 18-year-old.

2. Google AdSense: Set up your own niche websites

I love reading the way that Spencer Haws – not the basketball player, but the webmaster – sets up websites focused around a variety of topics and then places Google AdSense ads on them to make money.

3. YouTube: Make money via video ads

If you know your way around your smartphone’s video feature, try to earn a $4 million per year like vlogger PewDiePie by uploading interesting videos to YouTube.com and monetizing them, praying they go viral.

4. Squidoo: Write interesting articles

There’s a noteworthy monetary trail on Virginia Allain’s Squidoo page that shows how her income has climbed and fallen over the years. As of August 2014, she made $676 for the month via the site.

5: iTunes App Store: Sell your own app

You don’t even need to be as technically inclined as Harlan Yee, a developer who made nearly $500 in July 2014 from his mobile apps. Even if you don’t know how to code apps, you can hire developers on sites like Elance to code them for you.

6. Elance: Hawk your words

Speaking of Elance, the husband and wife team – Troy and Valerie Mellema – who run their “Words You Want” freelance writing business on the site, show current earnings of more than $450,000 over the past 12 months. Enough said.

7. eBay: Sell things around your house – or buy things to sell for higher prices

Tons of people have turned to eBay.com to make extra cash. Simply search through the “sold” listings to see the kinds of items that have sold recently and for how much. Whether you start off as a smaller seller like this blogger Yolanda, who is using her eBay profits to pay off her student loans – or whether you become a big player who buys shoes en masse and resells them for a profit, if you like selling and shipping stuff, give it a try.

8. Fiverr: Make money of just about any talent

If you scroll through the most popular sellers on Fiverr.com, you’ll note that they make money by offering everything from voiceover work to Photoshop skills.

9. iStockPhoto: Upload your photos, videos and illustrations for earnings

If you have a penchant for taking pics or drawing vector illustrations and the like, you can sell them as stock artwork on sites like iStockPhoto, where you’ll see that exclusive contributors and sellers like Beach Cottage Photography have experienced loads of downloads.

10: Instagram: Turn your social media photos into prints for a profit

Instagram.com isn’t just for sharing interesting pics or showing off your skinny waist in a corset. These days, photographers like Daniel Arnold have learned that he can make $15,000 in one day from the site. Even 15-year-old Ryan Parrilla has gotten in on the action and sells his beautiful Instagram photos as prints.

11. Whatever you want dot com: Start your own academy dot com

Popular author and speaker Pat Flynn worked as an architect until he got laid off in 2008. That turned out to be a big blessing in disguise, because he parlayed his knowledge of the LEED AP exam into a site called Green Exam Academy, which – among many additional pursuits – earned him nearly $4,500 for the month of June 2014 alone. Therefore, in the same way that sites like FXAcademy.com can help people wanting to learn more about Forex trading, use your own special career skills to help others who might seek information about your industry.

12. SiteSell: Work towards becoming a six-figure blogger

Lisa Irby has made more than $100,000 per year by teaching others for years how to start their own websites – either using WordPress or a SiteSell service that she loves. Follow her down-to-earth blog for tips and instructions on getting started.

13. Amazon Associates: Place special links on your blog to earn commissions on sales

Amazon Associates is a program that lets bloggers and writers place referral links to products on their websites or share via social media, etc., and when shoppers click through those links and buy something, the online retailer pays them a portion of the sale. Chris Guthrie has made goo-gobs of money that way over the years.

14. LinkShare: Recommend products and services to your readers

Retailers like Macy’s, Petsmart, Kohl’s and even Walmart have a presence on LinkShare.com, whereby if they approve you for participation in their programs, you can make money when customers buy products via your links. Harlan Yee made $118 in June 2014 that way.

15. Udemy: Teach an online course

Udemy profiled three successful course teachers using their site to make anywhere from $200 to $2,500 or more per month. Therefore, if you love teaching and have the kind of specialized skills folks are willing to pay for, you may find yourself enjoying a thriving online teaching business.

16. oDesk: Become a virtual assistant

The popular freelancing site called oDesk is merging with Elance, but on both you’ll find plenty of jobs posted by clients seeking virtual assistants to help them with plenty of tasks for varying rates. Scrolling through the administrative support category on Elance will turn up a bevy of individuals and companies that list their earnings as well.

17. Bubblews: Publish short, micro-articles for money

The interesting thing about sites like Bubblews is that anyone can join and publish short articles that earn small bits of money based on the number of views, comments, and other activity they receive. I’m a living witness that I’ve made $25 thus far from the site – albeit very slowly – and Michael Cimicata has apparently made at least $42.45 from the site as well.

18. Women’s Leadership Forum at BestBuy.com: Blog for gift cards, products

The site called WOLF at Best Buy is pretty fun, and us female bloggers generally jump at the chance to earn $50 Best Buy gift cards or products worth even more for writing about various specials, sales, etc., and promoting them to social media.

19. CJ.com: Promote products and services

Similar to other affiliate program sites, the website named Commission Junction at CJ.com features big name retailers Expedia, ULTA Beauty and QVC, who all offer to pay writers a portion of the sales they bring to those sites. I’ve made hundreds over the years from doing so.

20. Etsy: Pitch your jewelry and quirky designs

Some of the top sellers on Etsy, like beanforest, find success by selling pins. Find a wide variety of handmade and other crafts that may inspire you to sell there as well.

21. Teespring: A new model for selling t-shirts

A brand new way of selling t-shirts has arrived online, and sites like Teespring allow users to sell shirts that are of a great quality and don’t get created until there are enough buyers interested in the product, sort of like a shirt-on-demand business. Earnings for the campaigns can be discerned via the site’s data about the amount of shirts sold and the price per item.

22. Café Press: Sell customized products the old-fashioned way

If you’re no fan of the Teespring motto that forces you to “tip” a certain amount of sales prior to your shirts being printed, you can always use the old standby Café Press website to sell shirts, mugs and other stuff one by one.

23. Amazon FBA: Sell products with the “Fulfilled by Amazon” label

You know those products that you see on Amazon for sale from third-party sellers that still offer Amazon Prime shipping and “ships from Amazon” status? Those are sold by folks who ship products to Amazon’s fulfillment centers – and hopefully for a profit. Experts like Nathan Holmquist and Cynthia Stine are pros at doing so.

24. Examiner: Make money by writing articles

This writer just celebrated her 5^th anniversary writing for Examiner.com, and although it usually doesn’t represent the $5,000 months of income that my PayPal account has seen during certain eras, the site does still pay writers about $5 for every 1,000 hits their articles receive. Carol Tice writes about making a full-time living there.

25. Deviant Art: Get money for your artwork

Just the other day I paid $5 for 400 points so my daughter could have her favorite artist on Deviant Art, Candi Floss, draw something for her that’s unique once she begins taking orders again. If you have similar skills, sell them on the site for artists and their fans.

26. Flippa: Create a profitable website and sell it

If you are good with setting up websites, you can use the site called Flippa to find someone to buy it from you when you need cash.

27. Social Spark: Write for money and trips

The site called Social Spark by IZEA Media allows bloggers to earn cash (or even trips, like I did when I was awarded a great one-night stay at Kalahari Waterpark for my whole family) for writing about a variety of products or experiences. Find a list of other bloggers who’ve benefitted on the site.

28. GoDaddy: Flip a popular dot com name

Let’s say you were smart enough to buy NoriWest.com or another potentially profitable domain name before anyone else. List it on GoDaddy Auctions and try to make money for a popular dot com name.

29. PayPal: Take money directly for your services

No matter if you’re a personal trainer, an SEO expert or a web assistant, you can always use online means to have your customers pay you. Take advantage of all the options that sites like PayPal.com or Square.com offer to make it easier for people to put money into your accounts.

30. Kontera: Monetize your content and social following with in-line and other ads

Another way to make money off of your online writings and social media following is to allow certain sites like Kontera to place ads within the content, whereby they automatically hyperlink certain words with relevant advertisements.
There you go! With 30 interesting ways to make money online listed above, you should start seeing your Internet income increase in no time.