Rohail Rizvi

Entrepreneurship is one of those things that present endless opportunities and one of those is meeting some of the most driven, intelligent, and interesting people in the world. One of these opportunities presented itself today and I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from the Mind Petals Entrepreneur Network, featuring some of the youngest and brightest entrepreneurial minds at work. I am excited to be a part of the network and look forward to being able to share the work of my blog with now I’m sure a huge amount of like-minded individuals as the Mind Petals network continues to grow. I highly encourage you to check it out as you won’t be disappointed by the wealth of knowledge and the innovative minds of entrepreneurs that are already a part of the network.

Although entrepreneurship is something that is fairly new to me, somehow I always know that this would be the path for me. It’s something about that desire to break away from the ordinary and create something of your own all the while following your gut as to what you want to do in life. It’s also about being passionate about something. Surely, if I am going to build my own business that is my so-called “brain child” I am going to have much more passion and energy towards making sure that it is going to succeed than if I was working towards the same goals while working for someone else. I certainly want to put my heart into what I want to do in life and not follow someone elses dream. I really think I’m going in the right direction as far as what I want to do in life and I’m looking forward to jumping into every window of opportunity that comes at me.

In other news, I recently discovered Shopify after browsing Brian Balfour’s blog and decided to check it out. I must say, it’s extremely easy to set up a shop as I was able to do so within minutes. There is no hosting fee or shopping cart software fee at all and everything you need to open up a shop is there for you. Shopify provides PayPal as a means to collect revenue or you can set up a merchant account (for which there is a monthly fee and such). Everything looks really smooth and is way too nice for a few minutes of work. Shopify does charge 3% on whatever you do sell, so if you’re not making money, neither are they. I did set up a shop, although it’s not anywhere ready. I can’t accept any orders at this point as I am not fully set up with my supplier so I’m going to have to wait before I announce it.

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Long gone from the public eye, Napster is now back and best of all it’s FREE. Well almost. You get up to 5 song plays and after that you have to purchase the song. It’s kind of like Yahoo’s music service, Yahoo! Launch. Napster’s going to make a big deal about this so check it out: www.napster.com. Look out, iTunes.

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Wow what a day. Today I made $50 in less than 3 hours. I could have actually made it in an hour, but I didn’t want to leave my customer’s PC unfinished (in terms of removal of spyware). I started flyering in a pretty upscale neighborhood and by my fourth house I already had a customer! She saw me leaving the flyer and said she needed help with her computer. I had my first customer. So I went at it doing everything I needed to do and she offered me $50 after an hour even though I had told her I charged $15 an hour. I didn’t want to leave any problems on the computer so I stayed for three hours. Hey that’s 67% more than I made at my last job for six hours in only three hours. Not bad, I’d say.

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MSN Money recently did an article on this. Here’s the link: CEO salary

Some highlights from the article, which I found pretty jaw-dropping:

• Enough money, before taxes, to raise 1,467 children through the age of 18.
• Enough to cover four years of public-university education for 12,752 students.
• Enough to pay off the credit card debt of 32,000 Americans.
• Enough to fill up a Ford Taurus 4.2 million times
• Enough gas to drive 1.4 billion miles in a Taurus.

Amazing the gap in earning power between executives and employees.

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I didn’t really elaborate on www.mesosource.blogspot.com in one of my previous posts. The reason I picked “Mesothelioma” as the topic of choice for my blog was because after doing a lot of tweaking around on Adsense, I found that it was one of the most highly bid for keywords. When I say most highly bid for I’m talking $28-$42 per click and high search volume on the keyword to go along with it.

The way I researched the bids on particular keywords was by placing a mock ad campaign on Adwords after paying the initial $5 to start. I set my monthly campaign budget to something like the effect of $90,000 (of course I had the campaign on pause, this was just to allow all the highest bid for words to show up within my budget).

I then clicked on “Tools”, followed by “Keyword Tool.” This is where I entered all the keywords that I had heard of having high bids after doing a search on the web. Next, I clicked on “Estimate Search Traffic.” This is where I was able to learn the estimated bid for each one of the keywords I had entered. After seeing the profitability potential of “mesothelioma,” I proceeded to create a blog consisting of various open articles on the web. All it cost me was $5 as opposed to expensive software/lists on the web promising to do the same thing. Next thing I know, I’m up and running with www.mesosource.blogspot.com.

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Leapfish is a free domain appraisal service that lets you know how much your blog/site is worth.

Here’s what it came up with for my site:

rohailrizvi.com

Combined Value Score: 43
Top Level Domain Score: 10
Unwanted Characters Score: 10
Dictionary Word Score: 5
Length Score: 8
Archive.org Score: 0
Google Search Results: 92
Yahoo Search Results: 59
MSN Search Results: 169
Search Engine Score: 10

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“Skype and Dell agreed today to ship Skype’s video Internet calling software as an option to Dell’s new XPS mobile systems, the XPS M1210 and XPS M2010.

Under the terms of the agreement, Dell will offer to pre-load Skype on the XPS 1210 and 2010 as part of an optional audio-video communications package that also includes an integrated rotating webcam, noise-isolation earbuds and mobile broadband capability. The M1210 features a 12.1-inch display and retails for $1,300. The M2010 features a 20.1-inch high-definition display and retails for $3,500.”

There is concern, however, over Skype’s functionality with enterprise networks. Several bugs have been found and could jeopardize the infrastructure of businesses. Dell isn’t in an absolutely horrible position though as the software has only been installed on the XPS systems. They will have a hard sell, however, in trying to get IT to agree with having it installed on other systems. Get the full story here: Dell to Bundle Skype on New XPS Laptops

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YouTube recently had a major upgrade at it’s website on Friday allowing users to subscribe to channels that focus on the work of favorite artists or topical themes. Fans are now able to follow along with Internet cult like video performers like Anthony Padilla, aka “Smosh” (www.smosh.com). YouTube has shot up in U.S. Internet rankings in six months to become larger than any other provider of online videos. Read the full story here: YouTube upgrade turns one-hit wonds into stars

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It seems like they just keep going higher everyday. I just filled up my 20-gallon tank for a whopping $50, the highest it’s ever cost me. Well, I’m not exactly paying for it, but still. The highest price in the U.S. according to www.gaspricewatch.com is $3.69 per gallon at Chula Vista, CA. The lowest is $2.43 at Ozark, MO. The national average is $2.85.

The debate over rising gas prices is on-going and somewhat over-emphasized among the other political issues at stake these days. The war on Iraq, the recent tax-cut to the wealthy, or even the alleged scandal in the Haditha deaths seem to be less talked about than rising gas prices. Perhaps it’s true that people really only worry about things when it hurts their pockets.

I’m curious as to know how gas prices are where you live and how you plan to cut back if that’s the case.

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