Ricky’s Online Business Blog

I often receive question on how my business came about and what I’m doing now. Perhaps I’ll answer here once and for all This is a very brief history of my business. If you have further query, please feel free to contact me here.

In 1999, I started BizPartner with 2 other partners when we were university students. We provided all kinds of IT services we knew such as selling and repairing computer, computer training, computer networking, web design, and so on. There was no focus at all.  Naturally the business was not good and soon my partners left me.

I carried on and narrowed down to three major services – computer training, web development and SMS marketing. Before long, I became the top reseller of a hosting company as I managed to get quite a number of customers to host their web sites with me.

In 2001, I registered the domain name bizpartner.com.my (so late!) and started to focus on web hosting services only. Since then I’ve been providing domain name registration, web and email hosting services until today.

In 2002, I launched NextLevel Tutor Network, a home tuition portal for Malaysia and Singapore. The business model was quite different from other players in the tuition industry, and it did shake the industry a bit at that time. The web site went on until today, although many similar sites have emerged.

In the same year, I also launched RichQuote.com, an affiliate web site selling products on personal finance. For a while, it was quite successful as I became the number 1 affiliate around the world earning US Dollar everyday. However, the business model was quite controversial. To avoid any trouble, I later decided to sacrifice the money and turn it into a very normal web site. The site has since disappeared into oblivion, though still earning a little of income every month.

In these few years, I also launched a few other online businesses, some mine, some joint ventures with others. These include an online photo album about Malaysia, a web hosting service using single-level marketing, and so on. I also helped form a company which sells an IT outsource solution. Unfortunately these ventures didn’t work out. But at least I tried

So started in 1999 as a general IT service provider, I changed to become a developer of online businesses as years went by. I no longer wanted to provide IT services (except web hosting), but to build automated (or nearly automated) Internet businesses so that I have free time to do other things.

But starting from 2004, although my little business still went on, I started to get involved in certain non-business activities. As a result, I spent too little time working on business that it has remained stagnant until this year (2008).

This year in 2008, I decided to give up many good activities to refocus on business (often “good” is the enemy of “best” use of my time). The relaunch of RickySoo.com as a business blog this year was a milestone as I decided to devote time working on the business again (not just in the business). I’m trying to learn up everything as I did in my early years, and I believe I can catch up.

As a start, I’m now working first to transform my existing sites, and will later work on some business ideas I have kept for years. If you have good ideas and need a technical partner to team up, you are welcome to contact me here.

What someone you first meet asks you, “What do you do? What does your company do? Why you do it better?”, how would you answer?

in just a few sentences and short span of time, you need to catch his or her attention and leave a good first impression. Perhaps he or she will want to hear from you again and become your customer, or develop a business relationship with you later.

That is called the elevator pitch, a little sales pitch in as short span of time as an elevator ride.

When people ask me such questions, I normally answer “I’m an Internet business developer”, “I run a few dot com web sites”, “My main business is web hosting”, “I operate an education portal” and the like.

Non-technical people may reply, “Oh I see. So you design web sites!” Sometimes I just said, “Something like that lah!”, although I’m not a web designer. But it seems this is more understandable to many people.

Anyway, I have failed to explain and failed to impress them. Lost opportunities

So now I need to think of a better pitch. Do you think these are a little better?

• To business and finance people – “I develop Internet businesses that generate positive cash flow within 6 months for its owners”
• To non-technical people – “I build businesses that operate on the Internet. Learning to earn money in my pyjamas” :-)
• To bosses, sales and marketing people – “I sell products and services on the Internet using the latest technologies”
• To technical people – “I develop dot com web sites with PHP and MySQL”
• To hosting customers – “I provide you a platform to put up your web site and email accounts on the Internet”
• To people in education industry – “I do a little match-making in the tuition industry. Are you interested to be matched?”
• To my mother who doesn’t know what I’m doing – “As you can see, I sit in front of computer everyday to earn money!”

How about you? What is your elevator pitch? Feel free to introduce yourself!

Over the past one month I’ve been obsessed by a new business idea to do Internet business consulting. For those of you who have heard the plan, you know it is actually not a business, but an income generation and distribution scheme for anyone who want to learn to do business on the Internet.

Maybe I was a bit too ambitious, thinking to help people earn more income to cope with the rising living costs. I thought of not only helping them to earn, but also equipping them the ability to earn by arranging training for them. I was even thinking of charitable giving to contribute to the society. Suddenly I became so drowned in all these seemingly “noble” purposes.

The business is a kind of affiliate marketing scheme with twist, where the members refer clients and earn money. If you know the business plan, you should know the profits are to be shared by members and given to charitable organizations. I myself maybe the owner, but I’m still one of the members who earn like all other members.

Most people to whom I shared the scheme agreed to join. Some were excited about it. Some said they would consider. But recently I met up with someone who is looking for an opportunity in Internet marketing who criticized the idea even before I went into the meat of the business.

I admit I had a really terrible presentation that night, and I failed to recognize that he came looking for a certain kind of business and with a certain motive. In summary, I just failed to communicate. On the other hand, I guess he may have judged too fast and misunderstood a few things.

But anyway he did lead me to an important discovery that now I decide to scrap the plan for now. Somehow my eyes have been blinded to see this. And I must thank him for the revelation.

While it maybe easy for the affiliate members to earn money – just refer clients, I as the coordinator will work like hell having to do the selling and manage the myriad of projects and clients. But do all these efforts justify my time and resources?

It will not be too much a problem if it is a standard product or service with minimum customer support. But a consulting business is time, labor and brain-intensive. I will be wasting much time having to coordinate among clients, web developers and SEO experts. Moreover, I would have to bear great responsibilities especially in making sure the clients are able to sell and earn money on the Internet.

The “business” actually seeks to serve the needs of the members by distributing income generated from the clients. While the income generation part of the idea maybe quite interesting, the source of income may not be sustainable. Internet business consulting service may be a wrong service chosen for the purpose. It is a wrong mean to an end.

Having decided to drop the plan, I’m now quite disillusioned and have to face the members whom I had so convincingly talked into believing in Internet consulting. Sorry my dear members. Please contact me for alternative arrangement if you are still keen.

Throughout my years doing Internet businesses, I have been resisting the idea of doing web sites and Internet marketing for others. I’ve been wondering for those “experts” who know how to market for others, why don’t they market for themselves? And for those “consultants” who teach people how to earn money online, why not earn for themselves?

But how come now I myself fall into the trap and become one of them?