Go Business 101 | Internet Millionaire Stories and Business Tips.

Posts Tagged ‘Success Stories’

John Vechey, 28; Brian Fiete, 29; and Jason Kapalka, 37
PopCap Games, Seattle
Projected 2007 Sales: More than $20 million
Description: Creator and provider of downloadable games

Level One: When game designer Jason Kapalka first met John Vechey and Brian Fiete in 1997, the two 19-year-olds had just been wooed from Indiana to work at Kapalka’s former employer, a gaming company. “We hit it off really well,” says Kapalka, who was impressed by an online game the two teens had created. “We kept in touch, and around 2000, we were all a little unhappy with our jobs. We thought, ‘Hey, we could start our own company.’”

Beyond the Bust: As it turned out, the years 2000 and 2001 weren’t kind to internet companies. “We didn’t have the best timing, but we survived because we didn’t have many expenses,” says Kapalka. The business’s first low-overhead stomping grounds were in the co-founders’ respective apartments. PopCap adapted to uncertain times by experimenting with direct game downloads from its website. The gamble paid off, and within a couple of years, the company moved to a real office in Seattle. It has since added offices in Chicago; San Francisco; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Dublin, Ireland.

popcap.com

High Score: “We’re just trying to keep a very simple business model: Make games. If people like them, they’ll buy them,” says Kapalka, adding that top sellers include Bejeweled, Bookworm, Chuzzle and Peggle–all games that are easy to learn but hard to master. People certainly love PopCap’s games: Their content generated around $75 million in sales of their content across all platforms and partners in 2006. A lot of that is because the games have more in common with Pac-Man and Tetris than with World of Warcraft. PopCap is helping to engineer a shift from complicated, hard-core gaming to casual gaming for general audiences. Says Kapalka, “We’re moving toward the democratization of video games.” And that’s a winning formula.

Follow Their Lead: No matter how fast your company grows, stay focused on keeping your product quality standards high.  –Amanda C. Kooser
Another Internet Millionaire Stories!

Meebo.com Networth: $3.5 Million
Founders: Seth Sternberg, Sandy Jen, and Elaine Wherry
Age: 30,29 and 27

“When we put it out we did not know if anyone would like it; we just knew that it solved our problem,” explains Seth Sternberg, 28, chief executive and co-founder of Meebo.com.

The “it” in question is Meebo, a web-based instant messaging (IM) system which lets users send and receive messages from a number of different IM services, such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Jabber.

meebo.com

It is an elegant solution to the problem of having multiple accounts – many of which are not interoperable – and requiring different software downloads.

Community built

Mr Sternberg is not concerned that Meebo could be rendered obsolete if the big IM firms decided to work together and end interoperability issues.

“Yahoo and Microsoft have already made their IM network interoperable – we saw no impact.

“Meebo is a service but it has a community built around it. It is available in 59 different languages and our users did all that translating. The users felt so passionately about the product.”

While he jokes about one day setting up a Meebo airline, Mr Sternberg says the priority remains to roll out essential features and to take advantage of the growing power and flexibility of the web to deliver new services.

“There are very, very few limitations to the types of software that can be run as web applications.

“Microsoft and Adobe are working on technology that will completely blur the line between whether an application comes over the web or is on the desktop.”

But does he ever wish he was sitting in a cubicle at IBM, worrying about other people’s budgets?

“Definitely not. When it’s your own project, you are passionate about it all the time.”

Another Internet Millionaire Stories!

Ashley Quall’s Whateverlife.com generates 70,ooo dollars a month

70 thousand dollars a month is a very nice monthly income. Whateverlife.com, owned and created by 17 year old Ashley Qualls, is a site aimed at teenage girls and provides free myspace layouts….The site generates about 70 thousand dollars a month mainly from advertisements on her site.  Today we will look at whateverlife.com from a business point of view, so that you can apply a similar business model for your success. Whateverlife’s owner may be 17 years old, however she handles her business in a very business savvy wad.

whateverlife.com

Whateverlife may offer completely different services and/or product than your company, but the way you should sell your product/services should be the same. Whateverlife knows its audience very well. It caters specifically to teenage girls and knows what they want. How can you sell anything if you do not know what your potential customer wants? Put your self in your customers’ shoes and ask what it is you want. Adjust your marketing to reflect who you are trying to bring in as a customer. Know your audience like whateverlife and your customer base will increase.

Whateverlife offers FREE Myspace layouts. Keyword is free, obviously. We all love free products. Free is nearly impossible to turn down. Especially if you are looking for something specific, you find exactly what you want, and you get it for free! This is exactly what Ashley Qualls’ “customers” get. They are looking for the hottest Myspace layouts, find them on whateverlife.com, and are available for free. Whateverlife makes money from the advertisers on the website. The advertisers love the amount of traffic her site gets, and they know the audience they have to cater their ads to. If Whateverlife charged for every myspace layout, users would rather go to other sites who offer them for free. So by providing a great product for free, Whateverlife creates customers without the customer knowing it. Offer something to your customers to bring them in and then make your new relationship profitable for you. Give something to get something in return.

Ashley Quall

Whateverlife’s users can identify with the look and design of the website. They feel at home when they visit the website. Creating an identity that your customers can feel comfortable with or even a identity that they would like to have is necessary for a successful business. Look at Apple,  Who almost went bankrupt in 1997, they designed the Ipod. The Ipod didn’t necessarily do anything different from other portable mp3 players, but what it did do, it did it with style and function blended together. Everyone wants to look good. Two different products with the same features, the one that looks the best and is easier to use will be the one you buy. Create a look that your customers can identify with, throw in easy and simple functionality and your customers will pick your product/service over the competition.

Apply these tips to you and your company and you will only benefit. Whateverlife is a perfect example of a successful company with a successful business model. Quick summary:

• Know your audience and cater to them.
• Give something for ‘free’ to your potential customers.
• Create a look that your customers want and can identify with, and keep it simple.

Another Internet Millionaire Stories!

Markus Frind is a Canadian entrepreneur who owns PlentyofFish.com, the world’s largest online dating website. According to reports in 2006, he earned around $10,000 a day through Adsense’s contextual advertising program.

plentyoffish.com

According to a recent article , Plenty of Fish now receives 45 million visitors along with 1.1 billion pageviews every month.

His annual income from PlentyofFish.com alone is currently $5 to $10 million a year.

What is fascinating is that Markus Frind is a one-man show. He virtually ran Plenty of Fish by himself, along with help from his girlfriend and other voluntary moderators.

This is however, set to change as Markus has plans to gradually develop a team of 20 to 30 employees over the next few months.

Another Internet Millionaire Stories!