Despite all
"dot-com" busts a few years ago, Internet still represents ultimate opportunity for some people to turn their initiative, a good idea, and a few bucks into a legitimate, profitable business. One such person, Rosalind Gardner, took her interest in online dating services and turned it into a business that generated almost half a million dollars in revenue last year and should do even better this year.
The fact that she created this business without spending one dime on product development makes her story even more amazing.
Rosalind Gardner used to make her living as an air traffic controller, a job most people consider quite stressful.
After getting tired of swing-shift work, and though she had no product of her own to sell and needed to make money relatively quickly, Gardner decided to try her hand at selling on Internet.
What she did next might seem simple, but it started an online venture that would make every dot-com refugee from 1999 drool with envy.
Gardner logged on to OneAndOnly.com, an online dating service, and signed up as an associate or "affiliate". She said they were paying "healthy" commissions to any webmaster who wanted to refer paying customers to them.
Commonly called "affiliate programs," this setup enables entrepreneurs to create a business promoting other people's businesses and bypass entire product development and product testing phases.
In short, by selling through other people's affiliate programs, virtually anyone can set up a business online promoting almost any type of product or service.
Gardner created a website (101date.com), her storefront on Internet.
Though she created her own website pages, she suggests that an effective way to get started even faster is to go to dollartemplates.com or 4templates.com, buy a website template for between $10-$30, and modify it to meet your needs.
"Instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on website design," Gardner advises, "purchase an inexpensive website template for much less than cost of dinner and a movie!"
Gardner also kept content for her website simple, direct and effective. Though she wanted to appeal to widest possible audience, she kept focused on her narrow "niche" of online dating.
She wrote a review of dating service so her visitors could quickly understand main benefits, pitfalls, special features, and other information to see if service met their needs. If it did, and they clicked through her affiliate link to sign up, Gardner made a commission.
