Hello there!
Contents
I’m Ed – the caretaker for Income Gems which has just been born.
What is Income Gems?
Good question!
Simply put, Income Gems mission is to enable you to make a living online. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s a pretty lofty mission and we’ve only just opened our eyes to the world so it’s going to take us a bit of time to find our feet. But our purpose is very clear – enable you to make a real living online.
But Ed, there’s tons of “make money online” blogs already on the web. Why pray tell do we need yet another one?
Look, I hear you. I get it. Chances are this isn’t the first blog you’ve ready telling you about how to make money online, and it certainly won’t be the last! So what’s so different about Income Gems? The web in 2015 is both a wonderful and awful place.
Let’s start with the wonderful
There has never been a better time to start a business online. You might think all the good ideas have been done. Think again. The web is still in it’s infancy. Heck, 20 years ago the web wasn’t much older than Income Gems 🙂 In another 20 years we’re going to look back at this time and laugh, cringe and marvel at just how many opportunities were just about to open up in front of us.
Some of you may have heard of Marc Andreessen – the hyper successful venture capitalist who co-founded Andreeessen Horowitz. 25 years ago Marc had just graduated from the University of Illinois and became a programmer for IBM. The tech world back was very very different. No web, no smart phones, no facebook.
This recent tweet from Marc sums up his feelings at the time.
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/614947095494049792
This is from a guy who a few years later would go on to create Netscape – a company that pioneered the early web and pretty much defined it with the first major IPO of the first dot com era and then later being acquired by AOL for billions. The web changed Marc – and Marc changed the web. Perhaps even more telling is Marc’s response to a follow up reply.
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/614978622139400193
Like the world is just starting now.
It’s starts now people. It’s not too late. You have not missed the goldrush. It’s time for action and no more excuses. Every day millions of people are connecting to the internet for the first time. It’s easy to forget this when you become jaded by the same old stories and the same old ways of doing things. Income Gems will try to retain that child like wonder of what it was like to use the web for the first time. It’s important to think big and have grand ambitions. We won’t get bogged down in short term get rich quick schemes. We’re here for the long haul. I’m declaring this to be a 20 year project. We can’t even begin to imagine what technology will look like in 10 years never mind 20! Income Gems will be there all the way to help you make a living through it all. So that’s the good stuff.
The Internet Marketing cesspit
The world of Internet Marketing in 2015 is pretty much a clusterfuck of slime and crap. The amount of people who end up spending a small fortune on cleverly marketed bullshit is frightening. The phrase “Internet Marketing” has deservedly been tarnished because of the tactics of slime merchants. This is a down right tragedy as it harms those who need help the most. Our founding principle is to never short sell you with bullshit. Plain and simple. We speak plainly and truthfully at all times. But don’t confuse speaking truthfully with being shy about running a business. We’ll use affiliate links to things we like aplenty. We’re running a blog about how to make a living online remember? But we’ll only ever recommend things we actually use and like. I’d also like to dispel as much as possible some of the mystique about how to be successful online. In my view, there are a few essential ingredients that are within reach of the vast majority of people:
- Good work ethic – I put this ahead of everything else. You can be the smartest cookie in the jar but if you can’t do the work you ain’t gonna make it.
- Self belief – “the night is darkest just before dawn” – you will want to quit many many times. Hell there may even be times when quitting is the right thing to do – but the vast majority of people simply quit too early. Our culture of instant gratification and hearing about rapid rises to riches and fame has given us all a completely false view of what it takes for us to succeed. You have got to stay the course and keep going when everyone and everything is telling you to stop.
- Entrepreneurial mindset – This might be stating the obvious but you have to know a few things about how to convince people to become your customers. Customers in the digital era are not your parents customers. We as customers are much more savvy and unlikely to give you a red cent unless you have truly demonstrated value, trust and reputation above all others in a given market. You have to know your stuff. What is your market? Who are your customers? What problems do they have? How can you help serve your customers right now? This is tough.
- Content Mastery – this is one I think that even the best markers struggle with. Content is not just blog content. It’s Youtube, Snapchats, webinars, Instragram, Facebook, Twitter, Podcasts and tons more. It’s a lot of work to do it right.
We’ve tons to say on all of the above (and much much more) so we’ll do our best to focus on the wonderful and steer you clear of the awful.
We can’t wait to get started.
We can’t wait to see what you do with it.