Monday, May 29, 2006
生于八十年代的富翁们:从白手起家到身家过亿(组图)
本文将为您勾勒一个80后富翁的群体肖像。
李想坚持自己的主张：“妈妈，你不懂，如果上大学，我这网站就死了。我还要挣钱，网站不往商业方向发展不行。”看儿子如此坚持，王杰放弃了自己的想法，不过要求他好好学习。
2006年5月23日晚10点，在北京东方银座旁的某川味餐馆，高燃跟李想、戴志康、茅侃侃聚到了一起。半个小时前，高燃刚做完清华的一场演讲。
高燃、李想和戴志康生于1981年，茅侃侃生于1983年。眼角有点皱纹的高燃，看来比25岁的实际年龄大，黑色西装似乎把他出差5天的一路风尘裹了回来。
高燃说话的声音最大：“我决定不喝酒了！”上周四晚，他们聚了一次，结果高喝得当场倒地，茅去医院输液。高没到前，三个人都表示要让高从此戒酒。
公司的事情总是需要李想去思考
“星期天，我见了网 易的李甬……”刚落座，高就急着讲他的出差见闻，一边讲一边眼睛到处瞄。另外三个人并没惊讶，他们正等待高燃给他们发现美女。不一会儿，高朝他们挤眉弄眼，目标在他身后的斜对面。
见三个人反应不热烈，高继续说。目前他的演讲已经达到1万块一场，今晚清华的因为老师邀请的缘故，没收；明天，他要跑三场，早、午和晚，从北京的东到西，再到中。
这次是李想请客。知道高嗜辣，他特意点了一桌的辣菜。没吃晚饭的高燃不太动筷，他听闻网 易要回购股票，劝人趁机买点。
说到股票，李想开始插话：“猫扑有4000万到账，已经从最初的300人的规模，到现在的600人，据说还要突破1000人。”
这里面，李最关心风投和上市的问题，因为他的泡泡网很快就要跟风投签合作协议，紧跟着会操心到哪儿上市的问题。泡泡网2005年底营收达2000万，利润50%，按通行的市场收购标准，即以20倍的市盈率来计算，占公司绝对股份的他，身家已过亿。
去年7月，戴志康已经收到风投给的几百万美金，身家也过了亿。高和茅正处于刚创业阶段。四个人聚一块，除了好玩和率性直言外，更多是互相学习。
这几个人的具体身份是：李想——泡泡网首席执行官、高燃——Mysee直播网总裁、茅侃侃——北京爱航工业公司首席架构师、戴志康——北京康盛创想(北 京)公司CEO。5月14日，央视的《对话》播出了有关他们的节目。一夜之间，四个年轻人的创富故事成为热门公众话题。
四个年轻人的聚会。（左起依次为戴志康、李想、茅侃侃、高燃）
为电脑而生
5月21日，中关村鼎好电脑城。这儿的每一个电梯里都有一个穿制服、戴白手套的服务员，负责按电梯楼层。“请问您去哪儿？干嘛去？”报完楼层后，在满荷13人的空间里，就会有陌生人突然热情问候。
“从去年底开始，这里的环境就变成这样，这些人在大厦200米前就开始拉客了。”李想抱怨道，泡泡网2004年初搬来的时候根本不是这样。
在他印象中，2002年时，海淀桥南边的中关村挺冷清，那会儿还没有鼎好电脑城。李想公司内间隔开的每组办公桌之间仅能容一个人通过，坐着的人都在忙 碌。主墙上张贴着泡泡工作方式：1想、2计划、3做、4检查、5领先、6传承。李想与邵震、刘庆华共用一间办公室，他的办公桌靠里，整洁与他们的凌乱形成 对比。桌上摆放的植物已经枯死。
戴志康和他的同事。
泡泡网今年规模几经扩展，人数从不到50人到80人，又到100人，目前超过了110人，预计到年底将达到180人。700平方米的空间已经无法容纳，公司的发展也到了需要注意商务形象的阶段。
李想的泡泡网是一家从事电脑硬件、个人和办公数码产品的信息服务网站。六年前，在石家庄某中学读高三的李想没有对未来做过多谋划，只做了一个简单的决定：不参加高考。李想平时的考试成绩在班上居于末段，以升学率作教学统帅的老师没有反对。
李想第一次接触电脑在初一，立即着了迷，不想再学之前喜欢的美术。王杰也不强迫，尽管学校搞美术的朋友认为李想很有美术感，但没理他要买电脑的央求。李想生气地说妈妈没文化，还偷偷地哭了。
到了高一，李想终于拥有了自己的电脑。他清楚地记得花了8000多块，并且是按自己要求的配置攒的一台机。当时只能拨号上网，李想的月均上网费用为七八 百块，花的都是自己的钱。这个钱是他给计算机专业报刊写稿，谈自己在计算机硬件产品运用上的感受而得的稿费，“我从小作文就好，写稿不困难。”
“知道他是高中生，我并不惊讶，因为互联网没有历史，是给年轻人准备的。他的稿子写得够水准，所以成为我们的固定作者。”时任《家用电脑与用品中》编辑 的陈明辉说。比李大5岁的陈跟李话题相投，都喜欢玩电脑赛车游戏，经常在BBS上聊。1998年年中，李到北京采购电脑产品，他俩在网下第一次见面。陈记 得李一开始很腼腆。到2003年，陈加盟泡泡网，任主编。
高三，李想搞了“显卡之家”的网站，每天花费7-8小时，更顾不上课程学习，他已经明确地知道自己喜欢什么和要搞什么。班主任也知道他懂电脑，曾让他给石家庄某医院装过电脑，认为他是“为电脑而生”。
李想坚持自己的主张：“妈妈，你不懂，如果上大学，我这网站就死了。我还要挣钱，网站不往商业方向发展不行。”看儿子如此坚持，王杰放弃了自己的想法，不过要求他好好学习。
同样生于电脑时代的戴志康比李想早一年接触电脑，小学五年级。“用电脑得干正事，比如学习、开发和编程。”父亲戴光担心他只管打电脑游戏，戴父是大庆石油学院的博导。在父亲的正面指引下，他迷上了电脑编程，基本不打电脑游戏。
忙碌的高燃在广州出差
戴读初二时，市场上有了瑞星防毒软件。经过琢磨，戴发现了其中的技术瑕疵，专门致信瑞星公司。随后父亲带他到北京，去了瑞星公司。“那时的瑞星在一个很 破的房子里，才十来个人。”他清楚地记得，瑞星热情地接待了他们，临走时，送了他一个大包，里面装着一些技术软件和书籍。
戴的外公是中国第一批教授，母亲在大学任教，他认为家里浓厚的学习气氛使他受益良多。看到大人写书，他也模仿着写书，编了一本DOS系统的书给家里人看。
“知识是拿来用的，不是拿来机械模仿的”，戴越来越对学校功课没兴趣，时间上也顾不过来，他的成绩往下直掉。父母看到周围的孩子考试成绩好，心里着急， 便跟他达成协议：计算机可以搞，但学习也不能拉太多。在协议约束下，中考和高考前，他会停下爱好，专门花时间备考，达到父母要求的考学基准，重点中学和大 学。
掘金的大学生
考上哈尔滨工程大学后，戴志康发现学校里分为两种人，一种是努力学习的好学生，目标为读研、博，另一种是天天混，溺于网络游戏的学生，基本各占一半，而他自己哪一类都不是。
他想找点事做，为将来找工作作准备，并以此作为事业发展的基础，“那时的互联网生存状态很差，死了好多公司。我想只有为广大用户使用的东西才具备生存空 间，比如Q Q。但那样的东西推广成本很高，我一个学生，无钱、经验、人脉，根本碰不了，只有自己的技术才能成为敲门砖”。
某天，很偶然地，戴去到一个电影论坛，发现那里竟然有10万注册用户，同兴趣爱好者发帖、灌水，不亦乐乎。他想：如果有一种软件，能在一个社区论坛的服务器上装一个，光一个用户就带来10万人，100个是1000万，1000个就是1亿，这样完全是几何级的发展模式。
戴决定搞这样的软件，将它命名为Discuz，来源于英文disscus。一开始他也准备找人共同研发，但找了很长时间也没找到合适的人，只能是自己 做。一年多后，这个软件因为支持用户习惯，有同比更强的功能，迅速为网上用户所接受。现在在戴公司任职产品经理的王海波和一些人甚至把它当做自己的学习教 程，共同研究这种全新的技术模式，经常在社区里讨论、交流。分布于四面八方的他们于2004年加盟到戴的公司，组成一个技术团队。王说那时他不知道这是一 个比他小10岁的孩子搞出来的。
这个软件在网上提供免费下载，戴不断地进行技术升级和更新。做了两年后，他意外地收到香港一家公司的报酬，这才发现自己的劳动完全可以化为实际价值，以前只满足于得到别人的认可。他准备将产品商业化。
2004年初，戴怀揣挣到的第一桶金，从哈尔滨跑到北京。他先花七八十万买了间公寓做办公室，便开始注册自己的康盛公司，“跑工商税等部门，很累，有时 被人白眼，很难受，但我知道更大的困难在经营公司，每跨一步都让我觉得有成就感。经历最为难得。”这时，他还是在校大学生。
戴以前一直是网上销售，买方会将钱直接汇到他的账户上。此时，他开始在现实环境中接触客户。第一次，他依旧穿得像个学生，凉鞋、裤衩和T恤，到那儿才发现别人都着正装，“看到客户表情有点怪，我意识到没戏，最后果然”。出来后，他立即去商场买了套1000多的西装。
到5月，戴招来公司的第一个员工陈亮，现在的运营总监。陈亮做戴父的研究生时就认识戴志康，“觉得他很有技术天分”。2002年，陈得知Discuz是 戴独立开发后，更加认可他。所以当戴表示想他一起合作时，他毫不犹豫地辞了职，尽管当时的报酬与原单位有些落差，周围的人表示看不出跟个小孩会有什么前 景。
戴的公司幸运地赶匣チ＝刂?005年，公司销售月均增长50%。
相对来说，李想掘金的过程比戴志康顺利得多。
不读书后的第一个月，一个广东老板说要给李想寄推广费，他没当真，结果对方真寄来了6000多块钱。当时他还没构思好如何进行网站的商业化运作，给自己定的目标只是月收入2000块，“这个数比石家庄平均收入高了一截，我想证明自己能行”。到年底，他赚到10万块。
2000年春节前，李想说服大学毕业后到深圳打工三个月的樊铮回到石家庄，把两个人的网站合到一起，成立泡泡网。樊和李是因为各自网站在当地流量的竞争 而认识，“第一和第二交替的样子”。那时，生于1977年的樊是河北科技大学计算机系大三的学生，而1981年出生的李读高三。
如果现在任泡泡网业务副总裁的邵震不出现，自己继续呆在石家庄，李想无法作任何设想。从1999年到现在，他听闻过很多网站的死亡事件。对泡泡网而言，某种程度上，邵震像个幸运数字。
2001年末，自称“不喜欢朝九晚五，追求工作和作息时间自由”的邵震辞去了北京的工作，到石家庄玩。邵和李共同的朋友把他们拉到一起玩。言谈间，邵流 露出愿意在北京帮李成立分公司，负责拉业务，李只需提供他每月2000块的工资，李应承了。次年年初，泡泡网的分公司随即在北京林业大学旁的一所民居驻扎下来。分公司很快拉到广告，李想决定自己也去北京。王杰送儿子到北京，专门教他学会用机械式洗衣机洗衣服。
2003年底，泡泡网的业务翻了3倍。这时，鼎好电脑城成为北方电脑产品市场最大量交易地，泡泡网随即搬到那里。
2005年以前，四个人中年纪最小的茅侃侃也没有闲过，从最初的红旗中文2000公司、到后来的广告公司、公关公司和游戏制作公司，“起劲地折腾”。一 系列的跳槽是茅刻意而为，“技术、销售、管理、包装和推广等，是经营公司的必须流程，每一道都有必要熟悉”。他在每一间公司都尽量做到最好。由于手快，他 负责的工作通常会比别人早完成。这时，他便去接一些不属于自己分内的活。工作受到高度认可后，他的私单机会有很多，这使他“很能挣钱”。
给人印象特别能侃的茅说他最不喜欢光说不练的人：“这世界有主意的人多了去，光说不练，最后等于零。”如果想到一个自己认为不错的商机，他会马上去着手实施。
Majoy的创业点子来源于茅一次出差收到的短信：四川移动通信欢迎您！这条很多人都会收到的短信，使他突然联想起如果将传统的电脑网络游戏或者单机游 戏方式挪到现实中，通过手机或者PDA之类的移动终端和各种通讯方式整合的后台技术整合起来，不是能制造另一种更数字化的真人实景游戏方式么？何况，越来 越多的人通过网络游戏这个门槛更多的认识了数字化游戏的魅力。
返回北京后，茅挨个咨询所认识的人，从网络游戏玩家到喜欢唱K、户外运动、WarGame的人。调研后，他认为将网游搬到现实场地中，由真人扮演角色，通过大量移动终端(PDA和手机)和电子化道具，来掌控游戏是一个既基于传统娱乐形式又突破传统娱乐形式的创新模式。
看着茅长大的林琪正好需要为他所负责的某大型航天国企寻找项目，立即被这个构想打动，Majoy网很快着手前期实施。
此时，他开始在现实环境中接触客户。第一次，他依旧穿得像个学生，凉鞋、裤衩和T恤，到那儿才发现别人都着正装，“看到客户表情有点怪，我意识到没戏，最后果然”。出来后，他立即去商场买了套1000多的西装。
陈明辉注意到李想越来越成熟，解决问题更趋理性，以前基本靠本能进行管理。但由于李想没有过被领导的经验，在换位思考上面还是有点问题。他认为李想过去一年进步和改变很大，听得进别人的话。偶尔会冲动，但冲动之后，会自己思考。
财经记者发家
把妈妈送回湖南老家后，5月22日这天，高燃从长沙直飞广州，以Mysee总裁的身份，处理下属蔡衡“解决不了的问题”，与网 易广州方面的高层见面，商谈一项合作计划。
这之前，妈妈在北京高燃租的房子住了三个月，做他爱吃的家乡菜，每晚12点钟打电话提醒他下班，本来妈妈说，不看到高燃找着女朋友就不回湖南，可高燃 “忙死了”，公司里的每一天都很关键，“没时间恋爱”，于是带着千百个不放心的妈妈还是走了，临走只留下两个嘱咐：多睡觉，少喝酒。
高 燃的“空窗期”持续半年了。在妈妈陪着的这段时间，他不觉得孤独。江湖传闻，高燃之所以选择创业是因为爱情，当时女友在广州工作，在京穗爱情线上飞来飞 去，经济压力让他想到给自己打工。对这个说法，高燃的反应是：“这是一个方面，更重要的是我有个很大的理想。不想一生走的路，一眼就看得到头”。
5月23日中午，深圳一家茶艺馆，在等尖椒炒蛋饭的时候，高燃从衬衫口袋里夹出十几张名片。他一张张翻过去：“这个哥们儿喜欢格非，这个总编是我的老 乡……”他在回忆这两天见过的人，场景再现有助于加深记忆。对于手里的每一张名片，高燃都用他超强的记忆力还原出相见的过程及当事人的声音和容貌。
“每个人都要照顾到，很多事情都要平衡，又要做得不过分。”没有任何“背景”的农村孩子高燃，在铺设人脉网时花了许多心思。
1998年，高燃有半年在东莞樟木头的一家厂里打工，那时他是中专毕业。半年后，他考上清华大学时，村里有乡亲激动地评论：“高燃将来肯定能当中央委员！”要知道，他读的学校15年没出过清华北大的学生，村里人都以为读了清华就能像胡锦涛一样当大官。
因为家境，家人帮他选择读了中专，工作了，他还是想选择读大学。“你看到中专生和清华毕业生，感觉不一样的。”高燃这样轻飘飘地一语带过他考清华前受的触动。
2003年，阴差阳错地，高燃错过了南方报业集团的最后一轮面试，后来他在《经济观察报》做了财经记者，还被报社评为当年最佳新记者。
8个月的记者生涯后，大学里对财经、IT一窍不通的高燃纵身到IT界创业了。他有的除了热情，就是积累的人际关系，别人都好奇：“高燃才多少时间，怎么 认识这么多人。”高燃自己知道，那些挺好的关系，都是“真的好”。正是这张人脉网里的清华校友，帮他现在的公司融入了一笔美国的风险投资。公司一下子身价 上了千万，两个月后，身价还将上亿。
霸蛮，即使你不懂湖南方言，也能从字面上感受到这个词所传达的张扬气势，形容那些不知天高地厚的人，高燃对这个词有另一种注解：霸是执着，蛮是勇气。在5月14日央视播出的《对话》节目里，他总结了自己这个特点，现在又反复说起，像要给自己贴牢标签。
关于高燃电梯里堵雅虎创始人杨致远递计划书的事情，几乎知道他的人都听说过。尽管两年后的今天，高燃也觉得那种行为“有点唐突”。2004年春天，当当 网、卓越网也跟春笋似的冒头，高燃也想蹚一回电子商务的水，他写了一份商业计划书，打算寻找可以提供创业资金的人。还是记者的高燃，在北京一家饭店的电梯 里有预谋地“偶遇”到了杨致远，电梯里只有两人，高燃简单介绍了自己的想法，然后把计划书递上，但并没有下文。
接下来，高燃生命中“最 重要的贵人”出现了。江苏远东集团董事长蒋锡培，他在长春参加一个会议时，见着了站一夜火车来递计划书的高燃。蒋锡培投给了高燃100万，高燃的电子商务 计划没把这笔投入烧出个所以然。他开始选择另外一些项目，这时清华的同学邓迪琢磨出了P2P流媒体传输技术的应用，可以让一部片子的视频直播成本从7元钱 降到7分钱，2005年2月两个人走到了一起，并在6月将各自的公司合并，专做视频直播的Mysee诞生了。
偶尔还是会冲动
“太忙，原来每周五还踢一下足球。现在，已经有段时间没踢了。”李想原来踢中场，但他觉得自己更适合当教练。
他看着对面大厦10楼正在装修的新办公室，那里的面积比现在的办公室大一倍。“没有风险投资，我们的自有资金也租得起。”李想说。从2004年，泡泡网决定不分红，所得全部用于公司发展。
“没什么能力的人和受干扰的人结果一样。如果找到目标，就能发现解决问题的可能性，会比以前做得更好。只有好方法，而无目标，往往无所成就”。李想认为公司的发展得益于明确的目标，随口说出带哲理的话。
他把泡泡网的未来终极目标定为占有50%的市场。目前，是20%。他表示到那个时候，还会有更新的目标。
央视对话后，邵震的手机和办公桌上的电话很少间断，无一例外都是要找李想。有谈合作的，有应聘的，更有的说是李想的同学。他赶紧让人把公司网站自己的手机号码删除，跑出去清静一下。
这种阵势，李想在3月份《中国企业家》把他们列为封面报道后已经遇到过。在那之后，他换了手机号码。
他觉得完全能够从容应对。合作、招聘归口相关部门，追上门来的fans，挡了就是。他跟女朋友已经有长达6年的感情。跟女友的相识，源于2000年石家 庄某报的报道。当时女友见报后，设法在网上联络到他，两人越聊越相投。网上聊天半年后，他认为可以见面。“回来后，他说比原来想象的好，家庭背景也相 当。”母亲王杰还记得儿子当时的话。
让李想略感困扰的是公司大了，对人的管理渐渐变得困难。原来他经常发脾气，“这两年刚温和下来”，最后效果并不好，甚至有员工因长期感到不被认可而离开公司。
对事不对人的观念，在六年经营公司的经验下，有点不对劲，“做事的始终是人，人有问题，事根本做不好。”最近他接纳了某管理培训班上的一个新观点——对人不对事，试着在公司实践，发现管理变轻松了。
陈明辉注意到李想越来越成熟，解决问题更趋理性，以前基本靠本能进行管理。但由于李想没有过被领导的经验，在换位思考上面还是有点问题。他认为李想过去一年进步和改变很大，听得进别人的话。偶尔会冲动，但冲动之后，会自己思考。
打高尔夫的年轻人
戴志康没有李想那样的困扰，只觉得时间不够用。今天早上5点他才睡，前天也是这样。他记得上月连续两周平均每天只睡了四小时。5月23日上午10点半， 上地环岛西北角嘉华大厦908，康盛创想(北京)科技有限公司。戴志康匆匆进来。从他家到公司平时步行只需十来分钟，今天开车，却花了四十多分钟。
去年年初，经由某资深天使投资人撖合，曾成功投资过Google、雅虎、思科、苹果等的一家美国风投主动找到他。只见了一次面，风投便签了投资合作协议。
“6月，将拿到了几百万美金。这个投资只在公司占相对比较少的股份。”戴脸上依然带亲和的笑，但口吻淡然。
他现在不太用心在编写代码上，因为从来就没有将自己定位在技术开发的角色。早几年技术人员不占主导，被不懂行者管理，于是出现开发出来的产品不符合市场需求。当技术这块敲门砖完成了使命后，他只想做事情，做一个像微软百分之一大的小公司。
大学时他不擅言谈，现在能够在商业谈判上讲一整天：“经历过谈风投，谁都能这样。风险一般只给你5分钟，如果你能在这个时间里打动他，他再给你半个小时；还行，又一个小时；等他说我们吃个饭吧，这事就有谱了。”
戴到北京创业时，还没毕业。在课都没上完的情况下，能拿到毕业证吗？他嘿嘿一笑。这种事情，对他完全是小儿科。现在母校老要请他回去演讲，他一直没去， 并非因为过去不受重视，而是不知该对学生讲些什么。像自己一样不上课？好好学习？这个问题拿捏不了。他觉得做任何事情机械不行，因为商业社会没有固定规 律。原来互联网犯错误的成本不高，现在一点小失误就可能呆不下去，因此要尽量给人谨小慎微的感觉。
戴说他不看书，知识来自于生活和工作，“书是工具，就像字典。如果你一个字不知，一页一页查下来，你就全都认识了。”
除了小球类的羽毛球和乒乓球，半年前，经社区论坛上的车友介绍，戴志康开始喜欢打高尔夫。一般每周一次，上月起没打了。一起打高球的做传统商业的多，有矿老板和地产商。他和他们沟通没问题，因为做商业必跟年龄大的交道。打球时，他有时候也跟那些人的儿子玩。
他的球技并不好，但玩得开心，对此不以为意。
他认为李想很踏实，很有信念，悟性也不错。而茅和高处理大事可能比处理小事更加在行，如果更注重细节也许会获得更大的成功。
要活出自己的味道
对高燃来说，李想、茅侃侃他们则是他心目中的“男孩”，“他们很纯粹，人很好。”而高燃觉得自己已迅速成长为了“男人”，有成熟男人的处事经验。跟陈天 桥、丁磊这些年纪稍长的IT前辈们比，生于80年代的他们仨更敢作敢为，没有包袱。而陈和丁们积累了很多财富和经验，更容易患得患失。
在看完《对话》节目后，有朋友打电话来说：“高燃，有成语说老奸巨猾，我看你是‘小’奸巨猾。”对于狡猾的判语，高燃不能苟同：“我从来都不狡猾，我只是做事情比较成熟而已。”“而且，我善于发现别人的优点，还会发自内心地赞扬。”他补充。
高燃的张扬还得到了素不相识的老人欣赏，他手机里存着一个在黑龙江做主持人的女同学的短信，短信是看完《对话》节目后发来的：哈哈，我外婆看完对话，要我跟你好……
5月22日下午，穿粉红色衬衫的高燃十指交握在胸前，身子微向前倾，坐在广州天河公园里昔士风西餐厅的卡座里，专注地听着网 易邮件部商务经理吴鑫鑫和Mysee的内容总监蔡衡商讨一项合作计划的细则。高燃说，“我生活里的状态就是这样，比较温和，谈不上张扬。”
Mysee是一个专做视频直播的网站，2005年，直播连战和宋楚瑜大陆行演讲以及神舟六号发射，让这个网站撞入了网民的视野。
拎着简单行李的高燃，简直不像出差的行头。在等待见合作伙伴的时间里，他明了地跟记者说：“问吧，想知道什么，我很愿意配合。”声音诚恳。
霸蛮，诚恳，张扬，平和。或许这些性格都是高燃的真实一面，一面面真实的性格，拼出个立体的人。
“我在广州，不，准确地说，我在广州开往深圳的火车上。”5月22日晚9点，坐在广深新时速的软座上，高燃对着手机那头说。68分钟的车程里，平均每五 分钟他的电话响一次，或者是电话，或者是短信。“我每天最少要接三十个电话。”他已经养成一个习惯：每讲几句话，就将捂热的手机换一边耳朵听。
短暂的安静间隙，高燃靠着椅背舒服地打了个哈欠，眼睛里布满血丝，“要是能睡八个小时就太幸福了，我现在每天最多只能睡六小时。”
在进公司半年的蔡衡印象里，高燃的典型状态是早上9点上班，在公司呆到凌晨两点才走。
高燃自己总结的一天都是这样的：早上9点到11点，在公司上网，迅速浏览各大门户网站的新闻，然后看《新京报》和《21世纪经济报道》，午饭时会看看电 视，一般都是央视新闻频道、一套、二套和凤凰台。下午开会，处理公司事务。晚饭一般是陪客户。12点回家，他会关掉手机看两个小时的书，他最爱的是人物传 记和历史。
每部大片上映，高燃都必定去看，要么是陪客户，要么是跟朋友。一般的时间都给了客户和朋友，高燃就算有喜欢的女孩，“也没时间追求”。他现在对女友的要求是：聪明，贤慧，能理解自己。
高燃自己觉得，生活品质和两年前比没什么改变。他也想去法国旅居，想去德国看世界杯，只是想想，因为不可能实现。他现在只有“横下一条心”，为公司拼了！
吃，高燃只希望能吃到辣椒就满足了，然而吃这方面他能做主的机会也越来越少。穿，高燃让很多人受不了的是“一件又一件衬衣”，牌子他不在意，一款几件地 买，积累下了100多件衬衫。住，他在公司旁边租了两房一厅，步行只需5分钟，连车都省了。他不拿年薪，连月薪都没有，个人花费靠借了朋友的维持，公司值 多少钱，好像与他的生活无关。
5月22日，深圳，大学同学周森，是这个城市能陪高燃喝酒的不多的几人之一，很自然地，酒桌上，话题扯回学校生活“酒随便喝”的日子，又谈起了理想。高燃说，过两年吧，我要做我很想做的一件事，现在还不到说的时候。
周森懂得高燃：他没什么可怕的，因为他本来就是一无所有。
深圳的夜晚没有星星，当面前一瓶瓶啤酒清空了之后，高燃像在梦呓一样地说着：人一辈子不能像平常人一样过，要活出自己的味道。
地下室和咖啡
高燃在一些场合是不得不喝酒。不过茅侃侃对咖啡的喜好则是发自内心，茅侃侃的公司是一间约1400平米的一层地下室，靠外道的墙被五六幅底色分别为红黑白的水波纹窗帘全部遮掩，靠里处放着一组正红色的布艺沙发，贴角的尽头设了吧台和高脚吧凳。
吧台的设计来自茅侃侃。他喜欢喝咖啡，能够从中品出碳烧味、巧克力味和酸味。“不是小资情调，最不喜欢白领那种劲。但我不会喝茶，不像有人能一口品出是否新茶”，因此常去上岛咖啡。他一个人也能在咖啡厅呆上一整天，重要的事多选择去那里谈。
策划总监胡磊也跟着习惯了喝咖啡。胡原来在某香港公司北京办事处，专责内地到港上市企业高管培训和上市策划案，因女友而进爱航。一年半前，女友说找到一 份创意文化的工作，他觉得这个东西很奇怪，便跟着来了解。签了一份保密协议后，他开始听茅面向新聘员工的介绍。茅一口气讲了四五个小时，胡完全被眼前小自 己10岁的茅释放出来的激情所感染，发现做有兴趣的事才是自己想要的。他很快辞了工作，到爱航上班。
跟胡一样，王女冉也是听了这个介绍才决定来爱航的。2005年9月4日，王第一次见茅，明显感到他“不够沉稳，说话颠三倒四，不像能做事的人”。要不要换工，当时的王有些犹豫。
茅把许多别人不做的杂事都交给王，王认真、负责地完成，对她渐生好感。而王也越来越认可茅的工作能力。有男友的王结果成了茅的女友。
“他只有工作踏实，其他都不行。”现在她这样评价他。怕员工感觉不好，她正计划着离开，认为自己再找一份感兴趣的工作并不难。
几间办公室尚未起用，到处静悄悄，空间被衬得更为空落。茅的办公室仅开了盏台灯，“是整个公司最黑暗的地方，亮了，我就会躁得慌”。正常情况下，他九点半到公司，一直呆到晚上两三点，写商业白皮书和策划案。
这里的气氛让副总徐宛之觉得奇怪：“员工与公司的关系始终是一种雇佣关系，但他们却都当自己的事业来做。”公司里除了她和林琪，全是年轻人。年过五十的他们也跟着去咖啡厅、唱K和到杀人吧玩杀人游戏。
经过一年多的相处，林琪对茅更为了解。他认为茅反应快，做事思路比一般年轻人好。但阅历简单，对有些事情操之过急。他们做的Majoy要跟多个政府部门 打交道，牵涉园林、科委、公安、消防等。政府机关人员有话不直说，茅不喜欢去琢磨，情绪写在脸上。在茅办公室的书柜里有《哈佛商学院MBA课程》、《蓝海 战略》、《领导力》、《血型魔方》和《整合营销传播》等书，他全部看过。他说偶尔也喜欢看娱乐杂志，用来解闷。
有钱以后
李想办公的电脑是一台自己组装的机子，屏幕上显示着一辆蓝色的保时捷。受樊铮的影响，他喜欢上了汽车。2003年，还不会开车的他买了一辆蓝色的POLO，让人开回来，后来才考了驾照。之后，好几个员工都买了POLO，“下面停车场的POLO全是我们公司的”。
因为喜欢车，李想2005年又搞了一个“汽车之家”网站，符合他“把最喜欢的事情当成事业”的原则。为了网站尽快提高专业层次，他专门把几个员工送去参加。
这几天，由于要出席一些商会之类的正式场合，李想到车行借了一辆黑色的宝马525。POLO便被闲置在车库。他老犹豫着去正式场合要不要穿西装，习惯了牛仔裤配搭衬衫、休闲鞋，觉得西装很拘束。
“我开车很稳。”他否认之前媒体说他开车猛的报道。现在开的这款车并不是他的最爱，“宝马3系，就像自己的身体”。POLO将淘汰给还在上大学的女朋友，她已经在学车。
李想给自己定的年薪15万，平均每月领。有房、有车后，他基本没什么大项开销。衣服买来买去都是那几个牌子，别的牌子，要么袖子短了，要么肩窄了、腰宽了，这些衣服都便宜，对一般人而言，买时不需费思量。
而戴志康早在2004年就有一辆铁灰色的宝马3系，他的电脑显屏上便是这款车。“喜欢车，因为它提供更多的自由，想去哪儿就去哪儿。”与李想不同，戴说得出自己喜欢车的原因。他记得买车的时候，头晚想，第二天就开回来了。因为家里有车，2002年，他就有驾照了。
戴说自己买大东西决定快，比如上地那套160平米的房，2004年6月，知道推出后的第一周就买了，花了100多万，“房连车，没超过我当时积蓄的一 半”。不过，目前这房子是个让他烦恼的问题。当办公室时，没觉着它大，现在一个人，觉得哪儿都空落落的。晚上回去，只睡一张床，而打扫却得整个屋子。他又 不愿意像李想那样交给钟点工，一是自己着家的时候总不确定，二是对外人不放心。现在偶尔会寻思要不要换个小点的。
“干脆我们俩合吧，反正你那儿也空着。”一块吃饭的时候，戴志康打趣地对李想说。
“那你们不断背了？”茅侃侃在一边一脸坏笑，“或者李想那儿呆几天，又一起到你那儿。”
与李想不同，戴志康常穿正装，休闲的时候也是西裤配衬衫。最贵的衣服是西装，价值在1000至2000元之间。他的公司已经3年没分红，虽然给自己定的是2万的月薪，但从没动过，支出还是以前的底。
茅侃侃不想车的问题，他自己2002年买的赛鸥已经半价转手，现在开的是公司的尼桑车。他说一个月8000元的工资，给女朋友买礼物，隔两天两人吃顿比 萨饼就成月光族了，因为女朋友“特能吃”，一次能吃200多块钱的比萨。自从有了女朋友，茅便被剥夺了自己的着装处置权。王女冉嫌他以前土，不是线衣套线 衣，就是衬衫摞衬衫。她给他确定牛仔裤、波鞋，配颜色跳一点的上衣，显得年轻又不失品位，这样才像个搞创意文化产业的人。
唯一令他烦恼的是明年结婚需要的房子。在他心目中，结婚是件很大的事，一点不亚于现在的事业，自然不能随意了。他不喜欢高层，想买一套多层大房，还得环境好。目前还没锁定目标。钱嘛，想用自己挣的。也许今年十一Majoy试运行，啥都顺，这个问题就不再成其为问题。
“我不喜欢车。”话刚出口，高燃又顿了一下，“不过我喜欢悍马，早晚要买一辆。”
李想说：“算了吧，悍马现在都找不到地儿停，哪里都没那么宽。”
年轻人的话题总是多变，一会是股票、上市，一会就是没处可停的悍马了……
几间办公室尚未起用，到处静悄悄，空间被衬得更为空落。茅的办公室仅开了盏台灯，“是整个公司最黑暗的地方，亮了，我就会躁得慌”。正常情况下，他九点半到公司，一直呆到晚上两三点，写商业白皮书和策划案。
Friday, May 19, 2006
富甲香港八大钻石王老五(组图)
1、雷永晃：贪玩型男人
自美国毕业返港的雷永晃，返港后没有到家族公司九巴工作，反而到旅游杂志任销售总监。他酷爱水上活动，晒得一身古铜肤色。他与相恋多年女友冯芳颖分手后， 绯闻颇为精彩。但他强调享受单身生活，对于被人叫钻石王老五，他笑说：“我一粒钻石都没有，怎么叫作钻石王老五呀！”论财富，他或许不及其他富豪后代，但 英俊外表及高大的身形，为他加了不少分。
雷永晃家世：九巴创办人雷亮的男孙，父亲雷普照是九巴董事兼营运总监，家姐雷怡晖是RoadShow董事及营运总监。
雷永晃
学历：美国罗省修读MBA
现职：《Nevigator Magazine》杂志销售及市场总监
家族身价：约1.16亿
2、汤珈铖：现代版花泽类
汤珈铖
汤珈铖18岁已接父班出任汤臣集团董事，成为全港最年轻的上市公司董事。他四岁曾随影星母亲徐枫拍戏，英俊有型，被台湾传媒喻为现实版“花泽类”。虽然 他曾患上遗传性抑郁症，读至中学三年级便被迫退学，但帮父亲打理生意却有声有色。14岁初入股坛，半年赚了40万，至今未曾失手，一直以李嘉诚为奋斗目 标。在事业上他充满自信，主动出击，但在爱情上相当被动，仍未有女朋友。他曾表示“我喜欢善良，大眼睛的女孩子”。
汤珈铖家世：父亲是汤臣集团主席汤君年，母亲是国语片侠女影星徐枫
学历：美国波士顿学校读至中学三年级现职：汤臣集团执行董事
家族身价：约7亿
3、赵式庆：思考派
赵式庆
赵式庆是赵世光的幼子，言行甚为低调。他常表现出一副冷漠的模样，但对家人却是百分百关心，每逢过节必会和家人度过，一直未有绯闻传出。两年前赵式庆开 始协助父亲打理家族生意，前途无限。大概因为他曾修读哲学，影响其对人生的追求和思考，他会选择到较落后和刻苦的地方，如蒙古、西藏等地旅行兼做义工，体 验生活，他还喜欢看史诗式电影，不爱去夜总会。
赵式庆家世：父亲是已故船王赵从衍的四子赵世光，母亲是七十年代邵氏女星何璃璃
学历：英国Durham大学哲学系学士现职：协助父亲打理家族的华光船务生意
家族身价：约10亿
4、李民斌：低调护花使者
李民斌(右一)
李国宝的儿子李民斌甚为低调，很少出席公开场合，多与父母或兄长李民桥赴会，且定会站在母亲身旁，担起保护的角色。年近三十的他至今身边仍未出现女伴，惟一一次是三年前哥哥李民桥的婚宴上，遇见表妹潘楚颖(潘迪生女儿)，二人即拥抱亲吻，表现得非常亲热。
李民斌家世：东亚银行主席李国宝和“名牌潘”潘迪生胞姊潘金翠之子
学历：剑桥大学法律系学士、斯坦福大学英国特许会计师名衔
现职：亚洲策略投资管理董事及创办人
家族身价：约34亿
5、胡文新：胆大心细
胡文新
被视为合和新一代接班人的胡文新，六年前从史丹福大学硕士毕业后，即加入父亲胡应湘的公司，甚得父亲宠爱。胡应湘2002年初就曾送上1200万合和股 份(价值港币约6120万)鼓励他，又钦定由他接棒，全权打理集团业务。外表一张娃娃脸的胡文新，与南华集团千金吴旭茱约会一年多，期间胡对吴呵护备至， 更曾被人目睹他替女朋友拎手袋，但已分手。后又传出与玩具大王蔡志明长女蔡加敏约会，但双方否认。绯闻不多的胡文新，热爱冰球、曲棍球运动，形象健康。
胡文新家世：合和集团主席胡应湘的长子
学历：普林斯顿大学机械工程系学士、斯坦福大学工业管理系硕士
现职：合和集团董事副总经理
家族身价：约37亿
6、霍启山:女人甜心
霍启山
全国政协副主席霍英东的孙儿霍启山，感情生活多姿多采。大家都知道新鲜热辣的国际影星章子怡曾是他的绯闻女友。霍启山爱穿COMMEdesGarcons等名牌西装，拥有法拉利跑车，吸引不少女人主动献身，而他则喜欢表面纯情，内在野性的靓丽女孩。
霍启山家世：父亲是全国政协副主席霍英东的长子霍震霆，母亲是1977年港姐冠军朱玲玲
学历：英国King‘sCollege商业管理学士现职：中环一间投资银行工作
家族身价：约109亿
7、傅厚民：踏实的艺术家
傅厚民
傅厚民的爷爷傅老榕，早在四十至六十年代，与高可宁、何东、罗文锦等合称为香港四大家族，亦是叱咤一时的澳门赌王。1960年傅老榕去世后，其子孙将基 地转移到香港及海外，家族财富估计逾100亿元。傅厚民走踏实路线。他于剑桥大学建筑系取得硕士学位，并获英国皇家建筑师执业资格证书。他为伦敦火车站餐 厅设计的室内装饰，得到业界好评，被《elledecor》选为最值得介绍的英国设计师。傅厚民性格低调，虽然偶尔也会跟姐姐傅洁恩去参加派对，但很少与 传媒打交道，身边亦未见有女伴，是正宗的乖仔一名。
傅厚民家世：已故赌王傅老榕孙儿、名媛傅洁恩弟弟
学历：剑桥大学建筑系硕士现职：室内设计师
家族身价：约100亿
Thursday, May 11, 2006
幽默让你面试成功
有一次，我应聘一个炙手可热的职位，简历寄去后大概两星期左右，对方就将“抱歉！未能录用”的Ｅ－ｍａｉｌ发给了我。我在看到没有希望的情况下，便采取幽 默的方式做最后的一试，我回了一封信：“既然您对未能录用我如此遗憾，为什么不给我一次面试的机会呢？”不知是不是这封信起了作用，后来我得到了这个公司 另一个更好职位的面试机会。
今年夏天，一家地市级日报社招聘采编人员。我的一位朋友在入围面试的１０人中，无论从学历，还是所学专业来看，他都处于下风，但他的幽默感却引起了评委们的注意。
在面试时，问到第三个问题“谈谈你应聘的优势与不足。”他说：“我的优势是有过两年的办报经验，并且深爱着报业这一行。每当我拿起一张报纸，我总不自觉地 给人家挑错：题目显得累赘，哪个词用得不合适，哪个错字没有校对出来；版面设计不合理，碰了题、通栏了……甚至有时上厕所，也忍不住捡起别人丢在地上的烂 报纸看……”听到这里，评委们不约而同地笑了。
后他了解到，一开始他并不被看好。然而其他参加面试的人回答问题过于“正统”和“死板”，正是他的灵活与幽默让挑剔的评委们觉得他更适合干记者这一行。于是，不起眼的他脱颖而出，幸运地被录用了。
还有另外一位同学，他在面试时，老板问他：评价一下罗纳尔多和乔丹，看看哪个更厉害。 w
“我觉得他俩都没我厉害！”他很是得意地说。
“啊？！”老板一头雾水，如困巫山。
“我要跟罗纳尔多打篮球，跟乔丹踢足球，看看到底谁更厉害！”
他的回答不仅幽默，而且很富哲理，后来他果真被老板录用了。
在一次电视台主持人招聘面试中，考官问一位女学生：“三纲五常中的‘三纲’指什么?芽”这名女学生答道：“臣为君纲，子为父纲，妻为夫纲。”她刚好把三 者关系颠倒了，引起哄堂大笑。可她镇定自若，幽默地说：“我指的是新‘三纲’，我们国家人民当家作主，领导是人民的公仆，当然是‘臣为君纲’；计划生育产 生了大量的‘小皇帝’，这不是‘子为父纲’吗?芽如今，妻子的权利逐渐升级，‘妻管炎’、‘模范丈夫’流行，岂不是‘妻为夫纲’吗?芽”
这位女学生机敏幽默的回答，显示了她的口才与智慧，显示了她竞争的实力，最终使她顺利通过了面试。
幽默是自信的表现，是善于处理人际关系的反映。可以说，哪里有幽默，哪里就有活跃的气氛；哪里有幽默，哪里就有笑声和成功的喜悦。为此，在非常严肃、紧张、决定前途面试的时候，不妨来点幽默，不仅使自己放松，也使考官记住你，可能还会使你在面试中脱颖而出。
三位中国顶尖级富豪后面都站着同一个弱女子(组图)
磊等三位中国企业家在“她”的推荐下成为中国顶尖级的富豪。在这些富豪们成功的背后却站着一个弱的女子——徐新。
入夏的北京天空一片蔚蓝。干净、爽朗的空气让所有从全世界各地赶往2005 亚太投资论坛上的风险投资家们兴致勃勃。
临近西四环的超五星级酒店世纪金源的二层会议室，一位娃娃脸的翠绿色上装的女性吸引了众多领带们的目光。徐新，原霸菱亚洲的合伙人兼中国区总裁， 在其 十年风投职业生涯中，成功地运作了九个投资项目，其中，网易等5家企业成功上市，丁磊等三位中国企业家在她的推荐下成为中国顶尖级的富豪。在此次举办的级 别颇高的亚太投资论坛上，她更是在诸多男性风投家们中脱颖而出，被评为中国风投界最优秀的风险投资家之一。
将“巨兽”带到中国
风险投资领域流传着这样一个数据。100万个创业的想法，大概有6个能够成功，而即使拿到风投资金的情况下，也只有20%能够上市。做风险投资需要敏锐的眼光和判断力。
徐新坚持认为，一个人的判断能力和眼光是天生的。她认为自己的生意基因来自于儿时在国企当老总的爸爸。“作为农民的儿子，一直能干到集团总经理而且把生 意做的那么好是很不容易的。” 徐新回忆到，她很小的时候就经常搬张板凳坐到父亲身边听他讲公司里一天所发生的事情。就是这样每晚与父亲聊天的必修课让她 对产品的更新换代、风险意识、标准化管理有了初步的认识。“也许，我对生意的敏锐性就是那时候培养起来的。那时候，我就感觉到我对生意这套东西很感兴 趣。”一旦看准一样东西就会尽全力去争取的徐新说家庭教育给了她最大一笔财富———上进心。凭着这种性格，高考她毅然放弃人大选择南大语言文学，毕业分配 时又放弃税务局的工作选择中国银行，徐新说自己一直是一个很有主见的人。“通常在决策之前我会问很多人的意见，但是一旦决定，我就很难改变。但之前我需要 别人给我确认一下。”
徐新对即将到来的机会具有异常敏锐的嗅觉。1992年，在中国银行工作四年之后，这位柜台上的三八红旗手争取到 了英国政府和中国联合培养CPA计划，这次考试改变了她原有的生活轨迹。“你不能说等所有的事情都明了再去做抉择，那样的话，你就失去时机了，你要在未知 的情况下，做你最好的决策，而通常的情况我的决策大的方向总是对的。”
另一种生活开始了。1992年，徐新开始了自己在普华永道（香 港）三年的工作历程。 “刚到那边对粤语还不熟悉，每天晚上干到十一、二点。又要准备十八门的CPA考试，异常辛苦。再加上九十年代初，中国还没有现在这 么强大。客户也不愿意用你。因此，心里压力异常之大。”即使这样，这位永不服输的浙江女孩也不愿意放弃，“在那里，虽然你是少数，但你毕竟代表的是中国 人。”机会终于来了，H股的推出给了徐新介入公司主流业务的机会。“中国人的发展，还是靠我们祖国。H股的推出一下子使得我们如鱼得水，我们的语言占优 势，我被聘请为总协调人，可以参与重大谈判，后来的进步就很快了。”
普华永道的三年，让她对企业的生意模式、毛利率等指标有了充分的 熟悉，但审计报告这个最终产品并没有给徐新这个求知欲旺盛的女人带来强烈的成就感。水瓶座的她喜欢变化，喜欢定期的收获。“我希望时刻生活在一种有进步， 有创造的状态中。” 1998 年，她进入霸菱，作为原霸菱亚洲的合伙人兼中国区总裁开始了风险投资家的生涯。
七年过去，徐新说自 己对风投这个行业依然很痴迷。这位只在机场里买衣服的伯饶伯品牌的忠实拥护者说，这个职业能够给人带来一种定期的成就感。“做投资可以熟悉了解不同的行 业，不同的企业家，很有意思。”网易、中华英才网、中联系统、永和大王、京信通讯和掌中万维等企业就是这时期成为她的投资目标的。徐新人生这一步棋又走对 了。这段时期她业绩显著。网易赴纳斯达克上市之前，霸菱对网易投资500万美元。除此之外，徐新还曾有过10倍回报率的投资经历。那是在1998年亚洲金 融危机时期，在银根紧缩的政策下，出现现金流困难的中联系统成为了霸菱投资的投资对象。具备良好的市场前景和行业占有率但苦于资金匮乏的中联系统，依靠霸 菱投资的350万美元，在不到两年的时间内再度获得了成功。在这个过程中，霸菱投资以3500万美元出售了中联的股份。女性意识不是很强的徐新认为女人工 作中淡化自己的性别意识很重要。 “在这个行业受人尊重，要靠你的能力，靠你的判断力，你的每一个判断都受到企业家的尊重，他会绝对接受你。”
2005年，她的新动作再度吸引了各界资本的眼光。4月19日，徐新作为天使投资人所投资的国内专业从事网上招聘业务的中华英才网与全球最大的网上招聘 服务供应商 MONSTER（巨兽）在人民大会堂举行了战略合作签约仪式，“巨兽投资5000万美元收购中华英才网40% 股份。谈到中华英才网与 MONSTER的战略合作，徐新异常地自豪。”MONSTER很早就有进入中国市场的计划，因为中国市场具有最大的潜力。“MONSTER最终确定了中华 英才网，在于中华英才网的管理团队和整个团队的执行能力。”
徐新现任中华英才网的初始投资者和董事会主席，从徐新1999年进入中华 英才网，该网站每年增长的速度都超过100%. 截止目前，中华英才网已从最初的5名员工发展到了近600名员工。意图将中华英才网打造成像狼一样具有敏锐的嗅觉与永不放弃精神的徐新认为，有 MONSTRE这样的战略投资者和战略合作者可以使中华英才网发展的更快，“它是全球最大的网络招聘企业，已经在26个国家有自己的分支机构，能够给中华 英才网带来先进的产品和服务理念以及更为成熟的管理经验。有一个巨人把肩膀伸过来，你能不站上去吗？另外一个我们还可以独立去上市。而我个人是要把中华英 才网作为一辈子的事业去经营的。”
风险投资是科学更是艺术
经过徐新投资的九个企业家，有三个已经 跻身于中国最富有的人群之中，长年的投资生涯，徐新更喜欢用“杀手的直觉”来评价一个风险投资家的判断力。她很喜欢与人分享的一个观点是“对人的判断，不 是科学是艺术。” “投资是一门有关人的艺术，风险投资家是艺人，需要对人的判断，一个是投行业，一个是投企业家，而在这里面最难就是对企业家的判断。一个风险投资家需要花 很长时间把企业家的性格找出来，包括他的魅力、缺点以及犯的错误。他的团队、他的竞争对手对于评判这个人都很重要。而在所有考核要素中，能不能把事情做大 是最关键的。”以徐新的眼光来看，中国目前的创业者有三种。一种是国际大公司出来的创业者，例如国际机构的中国区总裁；一种是海归；第三种是土鳖派。这三 种人互有优劣。“从国际大公司出来的CEO 专业性比较强，靠系统管理建立企业文化，思维上跟西方比较接近，中英文通用是他们的优势，直接沟通的能力比较 强。但他们缺乏杀手的直觉。这些人，在中国，他们更像是一个执行者，属于格子划好了走格子的人而不是一个战略家。做企业家需要制定战略，定位产品，定位价 格，在这一点上，土鳖派更有优势。”
对于中国企业家存在的问题，徐新认为，迅速发展的中小型企业最大的问题就是想同时做很多事情，而 且品牌意识不强。“赚钱的感觉太强了就会不舍得投资建品牌，这样很难做大。在一定时候，企业家是要让渡出一定的利润打造品牌，这样既能压缩利润空间，将小 的竞争对手打死，又能够为自己赢得高端市场的消费者。” 徐新更欣赏那些走高端，抓中产阶段的生意模式和企业家。
中国目前的风险投资 领域经过十多年的时间，正处于蓬勃发展的阶段，但跟美国比，中国的风险投资事业还是很年轻的，对于正在壮大的中国风险投资家，徐新认为，中国风险投资家存 在的一个很大问题是缺少对成长期企业的一个宽容心。“很多风险投资家一开始就着急，希望企业能尽快创造出足够的利润，但这样的结果会失去市场先机，特别是 初期的风险投资。”徐新认为，风险投资家们应在初期尽量帮助企业家们冲市场占有率，培养企业势不可挡的绝对优势。“你看准了这个行业，看准了这个企业家， 你就应该做好头两三年不赚钱的打算。应有一种将企业家放到摇篮里的心态。”
徐新拥有敏锐的判断力。迄今为止，以6800万美元的资本 获得了1.21亿美元的现金回报和4100万美元的资本收益，实现高达61%投资回报率或4倍于投资额的收益回报，总投资回报率达95%或2.4倍于投资 额的收益回报。而对于中国未来十年的机会，她认为一个就是世界工厂，一个是中产阶级生活方式的改变。徐新认为，世界工厂和中产阶级的生活方式将是最有活力 的两个因素。“未来中产阶级生活方式的改变将给中国带来很巨大的市场，因为这种改变会随着沿海向中部、西部蔓延，不同的阶段，不同的地区都会带来发展机 会。”中国人均GDP比起其它发达国家仍有差距，在平衡这个差距的过程中，会有很多机会产生出来。“手机、汽车、快餐、短信、游戏，出国旅游就是这样发展 起来的。企业家们如果能抓住中产阶级生活方式的调整做做文章将获得未来的一个很好的商机。”
现任今日资本总裁的徐新说，自己有一个很 支持自己事业的先生，而她们夫妇两人有着一个共同的心愿，那就是帮助中国企业家搭建一个10 亿美金的大企业，“我已经在过去十年当中有两次这样的经历， 一个是网易，一个是娃哈哈。我希望在未来的生活中，能够帮助股东或者帮我自己创造一个10 亿美金的大企业。” 采访结束时她告诉记者，她正在筹备一个两 亿美金的投资基金。希望在消费、零售、教育、互联网、制造业等领域能够帮助中国企业的成长。
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
全世界最富有的漂亮单身女郎:可继承21亿美元(组图)
姓名：Ivanka Trump
出生日期：1981年10月30日
出生地：纽约市
财富：可继承约21亿美元
父母：父亲是纽约地产大王唐纳德·特朗普，母亲是纽约交际明星伊万娜·特朗普。
职业：曾经是模特，现在为特朗普地产集团副总裁。
学历：在沃顿商学院获得管理学本科学位，这个学校也是其父亲的母校。
身高：1.79米
2006年3月，NBC电视台真人秀节目 《学徒》 (The Apprentice)第五季开拍，这辑由美国著名地产大亨唐纳德·特朗普与NBC联合制作的节目自从开播以来，就一直是收视大热门，人们讨厌唐纳德在节 目中流露出的嚣张、不可一世的派头，却又一心想从中学到这位地产大王的经营诀窍，而在每集结束时，唐纳德从几个待定的淘汰者中，挑出一个倒霉蛋，对他狠狠 地说上一句“你被开除了”的架式，更是让人又爱又恨。在去年秋天播出的第三季结局篇，吸引了将近1300万观众，而在今年，这个节目又有了一个新亮点，那 就是唐纳德的宝贝女儿：伊万卡·特朗普。这位笑容甜蜜而且总是穿着得体的女孩，除了拥有模特的美好身材，还是目前全世界最富有的未婚女郎。
与洛杉矶社交圈里如今炙手可热的希尔顿家族继承人帕里斯·希尔顿和妮基·希尔顿这对姐妹不同，伊万卡的身家虽然是她们的几十倍，却是非常内敛、谨慎。 她极少出没于各种来路不明的酒吧和夜店，从不会像希尔顿姐妹那样，穿着衣料极少的服装。虽说她的家族也是靠炒房地产而暴发，可是人们却普遍认为，她比起真 正的公主看起来更像是公主。
这是一个继承了父亲实用主义哲学的女孩。从高中起，已经离异的父母就决定，只为她提供学费和必要的生活费。想要添置漂亮的衣服？那就只能靠自己想办法 去赚钱。迫不得已，伊万卡决定在课余去当模特，也许是因为她的出身，也许仅仅是看中了她的那双长腿，世界顶级的精英模特经纪公司与她签约，小小年纪的她已 经出现在了 《ELLE》 、 《魅力》这样的时尚杂志，而在1997年5月，她甚至成了 《17岁》杂志的封面女郎。同一年，她成为了美国妙龄小姐选美比赛的主持人(不能否认一个事实，她的父亲唐纳德正是美国小姐、美国妙龄小姐等几项选美大赛 的总裁)。
尽管她很有可能成为超级名模，伊万卡却仅仅将登上T台视为一种娱乐，或者是单纯的赚钱方式，她说，“做模特不会成为我追求的事业，当然，化一个美美的 妆，在各个时尚秀中奔走，这确实挺有意思，可是很小的时候我就知道，我想继承父亲的事业，进入房地产业。房地产才是我真正的事业。”这是一件让人难以置信 的事情，在穿梭于巴黎、米兰和伦敦的同时，伊万卡仍然是名好学生，从高中到沃顿商学院，她始终保持着全A的优异成绩。
当她从沃顿毕业后，她又做了件令人费解的事，她没有直接去父亲的公司工作，而是去福里斯特城合伙公司，担任零售拓展部的一名项目经理，对此，她的解释 是：“我想要去别的房地产公司，先从基层做起。因为我不想一辈子只有在特朗普集团工作的经验，而是想先看看别的公司的经验，了解房地产业各个环节的工 作。”而在去年，她最终来到了家族企业，成为特朗普集团的副总裁，以一个24岁的女孩子而言，她所要负责的工作可谓千头万绪，从全球范围内房地产项目的评 估分析，到项目的建设、行销和租借，她都需要涉足。
伊万卡说自己是“父亲的乖女儿”，她认为唐纳德是“最成功的企业家，我正在努力跟随他，学习他的一点一滴”。她甚至不怎么介意父亲总喜欢和年轻女孩约 会的习惯，还打趣说，“只要他约会的女孩比我弟弟大就可以了。不过现在他有些紧张，因为我弟弟已经22岁了，这意味着他可以挑选的范围越来越小。”而唐纳 德最近也因为在谈及女儿时一句过分的玩笑而备受批评，在问到“假如女儿为《花花公子》拍照，你会作何感想”时，他表示，“我相信伊万卡不会这样去做，虽然 她的身材确实很好。说实在的，假如她不是我的女儿，我真想跟她约会。”不少人因此摇头大骂，“他以为他是谁？伍迪·艾伦吗？”
Hot business startup ideas to capitalize on the latest trends
1. Writing coach / instructor
A recent New York Times headline read: "What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence". Employees at all levels of organizations are being asked to communicate more and more via email, and many of them simply aren't up to the task. Unfortunately, most high school and college English classes don't prepare students for this kind of communication, either. Individual coaching and small-group training on writing effective emails and other documents will be in growing demand as more and more companies realize the need in this area.
A second trend driving opportunity in this area is the growth of blogging. Whether internally or externally facing, a corporate blog needs to be well-written if it is going to be effective. A poorly-written public blog reflects poorly on the company, and a poorly-written internal blog for knowledge management doesn't serve the purpose of capturing knowledge for others to use. Corporations that are taking blogging seriously will also need to provide training in writing skills.
The third trend creating opportunity for writing coaches is the growth of self-publishing. While part of the attraction of self-publishing is the ability to control expenses, anyone wanting to be successful with self-publishing should recognize the value of being a better writer.
To get started, you'll need credentials - a degree in English, journalism, or related field, and a teaching certificate or verifiable teaching experience. You'll also need a simple, but well-written website demonstrating your writing abilities.
2. IT Privacy & Security Consultant
Information technology consultants are a dime a dozen, and the demand still hasn't quite caught up with the supply created by the recent economic situation and tech industry slowdown. However, in one niche area that's not the case: privacy and security.
A host of new regulatory compliance issues is driving this trend. In particular, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandates a number of privacy and data security measures for anyone dealing with electronic medical records, i.e., practically every doctor, clinic, hospital and pharmacy in the U.S. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires public companies to establish rigorous data capture and archive practices around email and instant messaging, among other things. This affects thousands of public companies, and many are unaware of the full implications.
Most larger companies will develop the expertise in-house or hire one of the larger IT consulting agencies. But the opportunity is wide open for servicing smaller companies, i.e., less than 200 employees. The key is to focus on the regulatory compliance issues, where you can be an expert, but they would have a huge learning curve.
3. Construction-Related Trades
New housing starts are up significantly in 2004 over the previous few years, and forecasts for 2005 are even higher. That means more opportunities for plumbers, electricians, framing carpenters, drywallers, and general contractors.
Note that the pay goes up significantly with progressively higher licensing. Journeyman electricians and plumbers can make $20 an hour in some areas, and master plumbers and electricians even more. You may also want to pursue a general contractor's license, as some locales are now requiring you to have a general contractor's license in order to run an electrical service company. Fortunately, evening classes are widely available, so that you can go to school for the next license while working full-time.
One important thing to plan for is that you'll need your own tools. As a journeyman, the master you're working under may provide any large, expensive specialty tools, but you'll be expected to have your own hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and basic power tools for the job. Don't skimp on these -- what works for occasional home use vs. constant daily professional use is very different. Buy professional-grade tools at the outset and you'll save yourself money in the long run.
4. Home Caregiver
Home Caregivers are number 7 on the US Labor Department's list of fastest growing jobs from 2000 to 2010 and the only non-computer related job in the top 10 on that list. This should peak at about 2007 and still continue to grow in large numbers through 2015. Caregivers supply personal needs to seniors in their homes including help with bathing and dressing, light housework, some cooking, transportation needs to doctors, stores, church and more.
As we grow older, we need help with tasks and the choice is often to get help from adult children, get outside caregiver help, or move into expensive senior living homes. Many seniors either don't have or are not close to adult children who can help, or those adult children do not have the time or ability themselves.
The qualifications at this time are relatively simple. You have to be able to take care of someone else like you do yourself, you have to have time, and you have to be organized and on time. In some areas of the country, you may take a licensing test which gives you additional credibility and this may be required at some future time.
To learn more about this opportunity, see Business Startup Idea: Home Caregiver.
5. Home Healthcare Nurse / Medical TechnicianClosely tied to the above trend, there is a growing need for nurses and medical technicians who can do housecalls, and many of these individuals are self-employed or work through small agencies. This kind of work generally requires more training and licensing than home caregiver work, but a medical technician program can usually be completed in less than nine months. This will set you up for considerably higher pay than basic home caregiver work.
Warning: this work is not for the squeamish. Some of the most common work done includes collecting specimens of blood and other bodily fluids, as well as administering injections and other treatments.
6. Virtual Assistant
While the number of people in this field has grown substantially in the last couple of years, the demand for this kind of service has grown even more. And as more and more people home office and work virtually, the demand will only continue to increase. Virtual assistants may do everything from bookkeeping to correspondence to research to marketing and publicity work. It can be exciting because of the variety, but it also requires a very diverse skill set.
High-speed internet access and an up-to-date computer are a must, as are a high level of computer literacy and familiarity with Microsoft Office and other productivity software. Make sure you're comfortable working with a lot of autonomy and very few instructions -- the people who hire virtual assistants are looking for as much time savings as possible, and really want people who are self-starters and require minimal management. If that's not you, this isn't the field for you.
To learn more about working virtually, see The State of Virtual Professionalism
7. eBay Trading Assistant, etc.
Many people would love to sell a few items on eBay (or other auction sites or Amazon, etc.), but they're unfamiliar with the process and not properly set up for it. While the mechanics of eBay may seem very simple for an experienced trader, they can be quite daunting to the first-timer: deciding on the proper auction options, pricing, writing good ad copy, taking and uploading pictures, and shipping to the winning bidder.
eBay has created the Trading Assistants Program to let more experienced sellers help less experienced sellers and make money in the process. It has already attracted over 13,000 members, but with 100 million users worldwide and continued high growth, there's ample opportunity still. There's also an opportunity helping businesses start selling in Amazon Marketplace, Yahoo Shops, etc.
You'll need some first-hand trading experience under your belt before you start. You'll also want high-speed Internet access, a digital camera, and appropriate shipping supplies for whatever kind of merchandise you're selling.
8. Mobile Phone Applications and Content
They say that "the thumb is the new power digit". However attached we are to our computers at our office, we are even more attached to our cell phones. As of 2004, there are approximately one billion Internet users in the world, but nearly 1.5 billion mobile phone users. Mobile phones are selling at a rate of 600 million units a year, making them the most widespread communications devices, computing devices, and consumer-electronics products. And thanks to a history of competing standards, the U.S., potentially the largest market, still has much lower market saturation of mobile phones. As the U.S. moves in line with the global standards, expect to see a boom in the U.S. mobile phone market.
And all those phones aren't just being used for voice communications and person-to-person text messages. People are using them to access the Internet for all kinds of content and services: movie times, news, weather and more. In China, Linktone is now offering the "m-Novel" Channel, which delivers serial novels to cell phones via SMS messages. Games, art, social networking, you name it. It's a wide open medium. Be creative!
9. Wi-Fi Hotspots
While setting up your own nationwide wireless network may be a bit out of reach, you can cash in on the wireless Internet boom on a much smaller scale by setting up Wi-Fi hotspots. A few major players like Verizon have set up large wireless networks in a few major markets, but the opportunity is wide open to deliver high-speed Internet access to laptop users in hotels, restaurants, and other locations. Wi-Fi can also be used to deliver high-speed Internet to remote areas not served by DSL or cable.
On the low end, companies like Boingo allow you to register your wireless network as a hotspot for as little as $10 and start earning money right away. Others provide everything from basic services to billing and subscription management software to complete system hardware. And if none of those business models suit you, then you can sign up as an independent rep to sign up hotspot locations into the network. This is going to be a boom business for the next few years, and there are opportunities for all sizes of business, amounts of investment, and levels of experience.
10. Infopreneur
According to technology analysts IDC, the amount of information transmitted over the Internet is doubling every year, and it's not all spam! That kind of growth can only be supported by an increase in demand as well as supply. There is more demand for information now than ever before in history, and opportunities abound for people who can find a niche and effectively market to it. It's really a very simple formula, and it's fundamentally the way that most people who make money on the Internet do it. And, contrary to popular opinion, products about internet marketing are NOT the only things that are actually selling!
There are many different business models and media you can use to deliver your content. You may develop an e-book or audio program and then use free conference calls to promote them. Or maybe you give away a free e-book to promote your teleclasses and web seminars, which you give for a fee. Or maybe you do like many people who are now making money as bloggers (and like we do here at About) and give your content away and let advertisers pay to be put in front of their target audience.
You don't have to be a creative genius to succeed at this, either. Matthew Lesko of late-night TV fame makes his money repackaging information that's freely available from the government. He just organizes and markets it better. Tom Antion creates niche sites like InstantEulogy.com that make tens of thousands of dollars a year, and he sometimes doesn't even write the e-books himself - he hires a ghostwriter. Boing Boing is one of the most highly-trafficked blogs on the Internet and generates thousands of dollars in advertising revenue every month. Read closely, though, and you'll see that the posts only contain a minimal amount of original content -- most is snipped from the linked sites.
If you'd like a step-by-step for one possible business model, check out How To How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site, which shows how you how to set up a product review site for less than $20 a year operating expenses.
If you'd like to explore more business opportunities, check out the links in the right sidebar. And may your business prosper in 2005!
How to Snatch an Expiring Domain
I recently found myself in the position of wanting to register a domain which was owned by someone else. The domain was set to expire in a week, and I figured there was a decent chance that the person who owned it wouldn’t be renewing it. Upon consulting the WhoIs registry on the current owner, I discovered the guy was a bit of a domain shark and didn’t seem to be around anymore.
So I placed a backorder through GoDaddy for $18.95 thinking that was all I needed to do. During the week that followed, I learned a lot about the domain expiration process. Two and a half months and $369 later, I am the proud owner of a shiny new domain. A really really good one.
This article will explain the domain expiration process and what you need to do in order to use it to your advantage.
How a domain expires
Contrary to popular belief, domains do not expire when they say they do. If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into “expired” status. For 40 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut off, but the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee. If a domain enters this period, it is a good first indicator that it may not be renewed, but since the owner can re-register without penalty, it can also just be a sign of laziness or procrastination.
After 40 days are up, the domain’s status changes to “redemption period”. During this phase, all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is currently around $100, depending on your registrar. When a domain enters its redemption period, it’s a good bet the owner has decided not to renew.
Finally, after the redemption period, the domain’s status will change to “locked” as it enters the deletion phase. The deletion phase is 5 days long, and on the last day between 11am and 2pm Pacific time, the name will officially drop from the ICANN database and will be available for registration by anybody.
The entire process ends exactly 75 days after the listed expiration date. For an even more detailed explanation, read the article Inside a Drop Catcher’s War Room.
Landing your domain
So if domains are available to the general public 75 days after they expire, how do you know your GoDaddy backorder isn’t one of many other backorders from other people using other services? The answer is, you don’t.
And thus begins the cloak-and-dagger game of “getting in on The Drop”.
“The Drop” is the unpredictable three hour period of time in which the domain is deleted from VeriSign’s database and released back into the ecosystem.
I briefly thought about trying to beat GoDaddy to the punch by manually registering my domain during the drop process, but I quickly found out that there are no fewer than three major services which specialize in pounding away on VeriSign’s servers during the drop period. With their considerable resources and my measly Powerbook, there was no way I could compete on their level.
So I decided to enlist the services of all three major domain snatching firms in hopes that a) one would grab my domain for me, and b) no one else would be competing against me.
The three services — Snapnames.com, Enom.com, and Pool.com — all operate in a similar manner. They use a network of registrars to hit the Verisign servers at frequent intervals (but not too frequent to get banned) and snatch as many requested names as possible. If you don’t get your name, you don’t pay. But that’s where the three services begin to differ.
Snapnames.com
Snapnames.com (the exclusive partner of Network Solutions) charges you $60 for your domain unless there are multiple suitors, at which point there is an open bid auction between suitors. Seems fair enough. Snapnames is a bit of a newcomer to the game, but with their Network Solutions affiliation, they are said to be improving their success rates.
Enom.com
Not wanting to chance it with only one company, I also enlisted Enom to snatch my domain for me. Enom had reportedly been improving their “Club Drop” service for a year or two and it was now considered one of the top three. Their fee was only $30 and they are based in my ‘hood (Seattle), so I was hoping they would be the company to successfully “work The Drop” for me.
Here’s where it starts to get sketchy though.
Enom claims that the higher your bid is (beyond the $30), the more “resources” they will dedicate to grabbing the domain. What the hell? How am I supposed to judge that? Does that mean you’re using one server now and will use 30 servers if I bid $40? Or does it mean that you’re using 30 now and will use 35 if I bid $1000?
Not knowing exactly what to do, I attempted to bid a couple of hundred dollars during the last day, but Enom required me to send them a fax to become a “verified bidder”. Since I was at home that day and only dinosaurs still have fax machines, I was unable to increase my bid. Oh well, I thought, if someone else on Enom bids higher, at least I’ll be able to participate in the auction.
Pool.com
Pool.com is the Scott Boras of domain name grabbing — the brilliant, yet conniving agent that players (domains) love and team owners (prospective domain buyers) hate. Pool plays off the power of the unknown in such a fiendishly clever way that you don’t know whether to hug them or kill them. Here’s how it works:
Pool is the #1 company around as far as number of servers and success rates go. You place your original bid for $60 and if Pool.com grabs your name for you, they send you an e-mail telling you they’ve been successful and that you’ve now entered “Phase 1” of the two-phase auction system. This is the case whether or not you are the only bidder! Pool.com doesn’t even reveal how many bidders there are.
Then, in a Boras-like move of diabolical genius, Pool.com informs you that you have three days to place a new sealed bid. If the bid is either one of the top two bids or within 30% of the top bid, you move on to a one-day open bid auction (the “challenger” auction) for final control of the domain.
Grrrrreat.
So if I bid $100 and two people bid $140, I don’t even get to move on to the final auction! It’s all designed to get me to up my sealed bid… whether or not there are even any other bidders.
Note: One other thing I forgot to mention is that before the name dropped, I grabbed all .net, .org, and .info variants (all were available) in order to have more leverage over other buyers.
The chase is on
Right on time, 75 days after the domain expired, I got an e-mail from Pool.com telling me they’d secured my domain for me. Great. Of the four sources I used, Pool.com was the one I least wanted to deal with. But true to their claims, they ended up being the best agent of The Drop and had just gotten me one step closer to my domain. They had A-Rod and I was the Texas Rangers.
Unlike the Texas Rangers, however, I realized I could be bidding against myself and entered a sealed bid of $302. I chose that number because it seemed sufficiently high but not so high that I’d feel foolish if I was the only bidder. I added the extra two dollars on the end just to edge out any other people potentially deciding on $300 as their number.
The next three days were particularly stressful. I had no idea where I stood, and throughout this entire process, I’d always had the sneaking suspicion that the people at these companies are on the lookout themselves for valuable domains. In other words, if someone all of a sudden bids $1000 on a domain, will a domain company decide to snatch it up themselves or “shill bid” against you on it?
Finally the e-mail from Pool arrived and informed me that I had moved onto the Challenger Auction. There was one other bidder and they had upped their bid to $312 in order to beat me. Not too bad, but I had no idea how high that person was willing to go. I had to decide on a top bid (a la eBay’s proxy bidding) and a strategy for when to place it.
True to form, Pool.com’s auction system squeezes even more money out of you by making sure the auction doesn’t end if there’s a bid in the last five minutes. In that case, the auction time keeps extending by five minutes until there are no more bids.
I could try one of two things: Bid high and bid early in an attempt to scare off the other guy, or lull the other guy to sleep by doing nothing until the last 6 minutes. I chose the second method since the ending time was 8am on a Saturday… a time when many people are not in front of computers. I set four alarms for 7:45am Saturday morning, woke up on time, and placed my bid for $500 when the countdown clock hit 6 minutes.
The system immediately auto-upped the current bid to $369 and I was the leader. Six nervous minutes, fifty browser refreshes, and a thousand heartbeats later, my opponent was nowhere to be found and the domain was mine… ready for immediate transfer to Dreamhost, my hosting company of choice.
I’m still not quite sure whether the person on the other end was real (although I assume they were), but the bottom line is that by playing every possible angle, I now have an extremely valuable domain in my possession for the reasonable sum of $369. Not valuable because I want to sell it or anything; just valuable because I want it.
Thank you Pool.com. I love/hate you.
Lessons from The Drop
Hopefully this article helps you in your own quest for a domain that may be expiring. My best advice is that if your interest in a domain name is only lukewarm, go ahead and use a basic service like GoDaddy, but if you really don’t want to let one get away, you must enlist the services of the big three: Snapnames, Enom, and Pool. It’s anybody’s guess what the final price will be, but by getting all the best agents out there working for you, you ensure at least being in the game.
How to Make a Fortune with "Expired" Domains
When I first got involved in the domain name speculation business, I was so excited. As a mortgage broker and conventional real estate investor, I got the chance to put my understanding of time value and appreciation into practice. Then I had a reality check. How am I going to find investment grade domain names that I can buy and sell relatively quickly…without any headache or frustration. I remember in January of 1998 becoming so frustrated spending four to five hours a day after work, typing in great sounding .com names only to find a good one…ONCE per week!
Within a few months, I owned a few domain names that were slowly appreciating in value that I could easily sell for $500 - $1,000! But I was looking for immediate cashflow. Then one early morning in October of 1999 before going to work, I found it….I tapped into the “motherload”!!
The “motherload” that I am referring to is a computer programmer who designed a system to search for “expired” domain names. Every week, thousands of people have their precious domain names repossessed because of non-payment of their registration fee! When this happens…the domain name returns to the pool of domain names available to the public. Anyone…and I repeat...anyone can then register that name and claim it for themselves!
I have never seen a more powerful way to make money on the Internet with minimal investment than with “expired” and “unclaimed” domain names.
It is relatively easy to make $5,000 - $10,000 per month in the domain speculation business...if you know how.
Domain names are like “real estate”. Internet real estate! You have seen the articles in the newspaper “Business.com is sold by a Houston entrepreneur for $7.5 Million!”. “Bingo.com fetches $1 Million!” These kinds of deals happen on the Internet every day of the year. The average sale is approximately $500 to $1000! The really good domain names sell for $50,000 or higher.
Every week, this computer programmer compiles a list of domain names that expire the previous week and are now available. You know that the right domain name can make or break a site. Webmasters will pay you handsomely for the rights to a domain name. Image is everything on the Net…and with the right domain name, you can instantly generate huge profits!
If you visit Ebay.com right now, you will see hundreds of domain names of sale…some valuable…and some not so valuable! Every day, thousands of people are looking for good domain names, so you’ve got an established market! Just waiting for you to present your bids!
Here are some of the recent bids on Ebay (popular Internet auction site):
Income.com $10,001
Arlington.com $20,000
i-player.com $1,500
e-zine.com $560
Register as a merchant on ebay.com or any other high traffic auction website, and let the whole world know about the “expired” domain names you have for immediate sale. If you have a really valuable domain name, you will immediately…yes, immediately, receive bids on your domain names. It will be like opening the “floodgate”, and you will be ready to profit! You have heard the saying, “Chance favors the prepared mind!” Well, with a valuable domain name and the right marketing strategy, you are going to profit immensely in this lucrative business!
When I sold emailmarketing.com for $5000 in June of 1999, the buyer paid the registration dues…willingly without hesitation! They were so happy to get the domain name for their direct marketing company..they were overflowing with joy when I agreed to the sale! The only thing left for the buyer to do after the sale is to make the necessary web site hosting arrangements which he can do with any reliable hosting company that he or she chooses.
Please don’t make this business more complicated than it is. To become a domain name investor is easy!!! You can usually sell an investment grade name within the first 90 days. (QuickStart Tip of the Day: In the beginning as an investor, stick to .com names! They will typically sell much faster than .net or .org names.)
Domain name investing is a very lucrative business. I remember my joy when I received my first $5,000 check! I am now working on the sale of leaseoptions.net and a few other domain names in my possession. I have received bids as high as $5,000 however, I have secured a buyer (a personal friend of mine) and should net $4,700 in a few weeks!
There is absolutely no downside to this business. You can make as much money as you want. In many cases, you will not have to meet or talk to the buyer!
I am by no means an expert domain name investor, but after almost five years as an internet consultant, I know a good thing when I see it. Rest assured that even if 5000 investors jumped on the domain name investing bandwagon tomorrow, you will still have a chance to make $5,000 - $10,000 per month in this business! Remember, there are millions of domain names in the registry…and thousands expire every week! New ones are being registered every day...so there is no end to this incredible business opportunity. Just set your price and wait. Like they say, “Value is in the eye of the beholder” (or something like that).
Use the Internet and you will quickly find buyers! With a few good domain names, you will have buyers “beating a path” to your door. You can just sit back and name your price! There is really no limited to the amount of money you can make in this business! Knowledge is power!
How To Make Money Selling Domain Names
Below I will tell you everything you need to know, including where to find good domain names that are still available for registration (for as low as $14.) This used to be one of the hardest and most frustrating parts of domain investing. In the past to find good domain names you would have to search, one by one, until one came up that was available. But now there are research tools and compiled lists that do this for you! You can
also get lists of domains that have expired, due to non-payment, and have been put back into the available pool. More on this below, but first lets discuss what makes a good domain name.
What makes a good domain name:
The suffix is the most important factor. .COM, .NET, and .ORG are by far the most popular. Other alternative domains like .WS, .TV, .FM, are becoming more and more popular because they are wide open. For example where you couldn't get DW.com you can still get DW.ws (well maybe not anymore). For now, I would stick with .COM because they will be the easiest to sell.
Would a webmaster or business want it? Ask yourself that question and if you can't instantly say "Yes!" than don't buy it. Also the more generic the domain name the better. And remember it is illegal to register a business name or trademark that you do not own. This is called "cyber-squatting" and tough laws are now in place to protect against this.
The shorter the name the better. These are the most memorable and easiest to market. At the time of writing this, there are only about a thousand three character domain names left. To find out how to get a list of these and four-character domain names see below.
What names are selling? Do some research on Ebay.com or Afternic.com (popular domain auctions) and see what names are selling and for how much. Below are what some domains recently auctioned for or have current bids at Afternic.com:
Internetbank.com $92,800
E-Privacy.com $35,080
eloans.net $6,060
Ez-HomeLoans.com $4,725
venture-capital.net $14,510
officetravel.com $2,625
qalaxycafe.com $1,890
a1restaurants.com $730
stormnews.com $765
SkinCleanse.com $2,885
LADoctor.com $15,000
MrAirline.com $15,000
Engineering.org $198,895.00
How to find high quality domain names:
There is a myth circulating cyberspace that all the good domains are taken already. And although it is true that thousands of new domain names are registered everyday, there are still good names to found. The best way to find great domains is to subscribe to expired domain lists. These are compiled lists of the thousands of repossessed domain names that have been put back into the domain pool every day. They are available again for anyone to
register and contain some really great names; recently race.com appeared in one and was snatched up by a lucky subscriber. As a subscriber you will get first pick at registering these names. There are two such lists that I know of:
Unclaimed Domains - http://join.at/unclaimed
DNSIndex Expired Domains - http://join.at/DNSIndex
These lists are literally worth thousands of dollars. To get the lists all you have to do is subscribe, which is easy and cheap. Then each week you will receive a fresh list of expired domains in your email inbox. You may also purchase a custom keyword search in the recently expired domain name pool from DNS research - http://buy.at/DNSResearch .
Other tools to help you find great domain names:
DNS Research - http://buy.at/DNSResearch sells lists of all available Dictionary Word .COM, .NET, and .ORG domain names. They also offer lists of remaining three character domain names.
DNS Index - http://join.at/DNSIndex - sells lists of available three character and four character domain names as well as custom searches of the expired domain pool.
FREE tools to help you find great domain names:
DomainsWeekly.com offers a free weekly e-zine that includes a list of over 200 high quality expired and available domain names. The website also has tons of domain related links, resources, services, news and more. NameBoy.com has a great search engine that recommends available domain names based on a keyword you enter. NameU.com has a search engine that does pretty much the same thing except you have to click on each name individually to see if it is available.
Domain registration:
After you find some good domain names, you will need to register them. Not too long ago the cost to register a domain name was $70 for two years. But with new regulations and the
distribution of registering privileges the cost of registration has become more affordable. Meaning more profit for you! You can now register a domain name for as little as $14 for a year. One place to do this is at DomainsWeekly.com
Selling your domain:
The most effective place on the Internet to sell your domain names is on auction sites. List them first on Ebay.com, Afternic.com, and Ezdomainauction.com. There are also domain
name brokers that will list your site for free, a fee when sold, a fee to list, or both a fee to list and when sold. GreatDomains.com is a great high traffic site to list on and
you only pay them only a small percentage when you sell your domain. If you have a good domain name, and your price is right it won't be long before a buyer bids or contacts you.
Many new domain sellers make the mistake of trying to sell every domain name for thousands of dollars. When, in fact, you will do much better selling more domains for a few hundred dollars. This way you will have a much higher turn around rate. Remember you are registering the names for $14 and if you sell one for even $200 that is still a huge 2600% profit!
Conclusion:
As you can see, domain name buying and selling is a good way to make a great deal of money. It's very easy and you can do it in your spare time. Get started today by subscribing free to DomainsWeekly.com, subscribing to DNSIndex - http://join.at/DNSIndex (instant access to expired domains) and any of the other available and expired domain lists listed above. Register with Ebay.com and Afternic.com and begin
selling! Good Luck!
Hit the Jackpot! How to Find Money-making Domains
By Mara Miller
February 13th 2006
Reader Rating: 7
Investing in registered or expired domains can increase the visibility of your Website and help direct traffic that will convert to sales. However, with over 60 million domains currently registered, it can be daunting to try to find the right domain -- one that will drive quality traffic to your Website or parked domain.
How can you ensure you're making the right decision when you purchase registered and expired domains? Do your research and you'll feel confident in your purchase.
In this article, I'll explain the tools and techniques domain pros use to determine -- or at least reasonably guesstimate -- how much, and what type, of traffic a domain receives. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be able to predict approximately how much money a given domain will make, and thus gain a better understanding of the domain's true value. We'll discuss three methods for evaluating the traffic a domain receives:
- Trackers/Direct Methods
- Predictors/Indirect Methods
- Traffic Source
The educated buyer always comes out ahead, so read on to unlock the mysteries of domain traffic and learn how to determine scientifically if a domain is really worth buying.
Trackers/Direct Methods
Ideally, you could skip all of the guesswork and find out how much traffic a domain receives directly from the domain owner. The easiest way to do this is simply to ask the seller. However, the seller may make a mistake (or simply be dishonest), so it's always a good idea to double-check the numbers using one or more of the following methods.
Developed Website
Traffic counting scripts are one of the simplest and most reliable methods for determining traffic to a developed Website. Many free professional statistics programs are available. These can be integrated easily into Website code to give buyers the additional reassurance of a third-party-verified system. Most trackers will provide sellers even more information, such as top referrers, the geographic and chronological breakdown of visitors, and more.
Parked Domains
If a domain name is parked, the parking program may make traffic statistics available automatically through the domain's sales listing page. For example, at the time this article was written, the traffic attracted by the parked domain, Wifi.com could be viewed on the domain's sale page.
It's worth noting that visitor numbers can be manipulated by malevolent sellers, but in general, parked domain visitor stats serve as a very helpful guideline for potential buyers.
Predictors/Indirect Methods
What should you do if a domain is not parked and the seller is unable to provide you with visitor statistics? Fortunately, a few handy tricks can be used to help you get a rough indication of whether or not a domain receives any traffic.
I wouldn't recommend relying exclusively on any of these tricks as a bulletproof way to guesstimate traffic. However, taken as a whole (and with a hefty spoonful of salt), they can shine a bit of light on the question of whether or not a domain will receive valuable traffic.
Alexa.com
Alexa ranks web sites based on the number of visitors they receive. For example, at the time this article was written, Yahoo.com ranked first, while blue.com ranked at 212,093 and camera.com at 717,298. These rankings are based on data derived from Alexa toolbar users. Translating these numbers into unique views, Camera.com received over 10,000 unique views in the month of September while Blue.com received over 70,000 uniques. (Statistics from Sedo.com).
Many high-traffic domain names will receive an Alexa ranking just from their type-in traffic. In general, an Alexa ranking under 1,000,000 for an undeveloped site is a good indicator that the domain receives decent traffic (e.g. several thousand monthly uniques). Rankings over a million are less reliable, but usually any sort of Alexa ranking means the domain receives at least some traffic. As with all of these methods, Alexa should be used as a guideline only: sometimes even domains for which Alexa returns "No Data" (too low to rank) will still receive traffic. Ranking.com offers a tool that's similar to Alexa's.
Overture Searches
Yahoo! Search Marketing's Keyword Selector Tool (known to many of us as Overture) tells you how often a given keyword was searched on the Yahoo! network. For example, "Yahoo" was searched 17,858,229 times in September 2005, while "Blue" was searched 178,124 times.
Naturally, a domain that contains a highly-searched keyword is more likely to receive traffic. However, the Overture Tool's usefulness goes beyond that: if you use the exact domain name (with extension) as the keyword, Overture results can be used as a predictor for whether or not a domain name receives traffic. For example, "Yahoo.com" was searched over 11 million times in September, according to Overture. Our comparison sites fared as follows: "Blue.com" was searched 794 times, while "Camera.com" was searched 258 times.
Research has shown that Overture searches do sometimes have a rough correlation with traffic (especially type-in traffic), but as with other methods, there are many exceptions to the rule.
Traffic Source
If you want to better understand something, go to the source. This aphorism applies to domain traffic just as well as it does to other information. Thus, in addition to using the above methods to guesstimate the quantity of traffic a given domain receives, you may want to use these techniques to try to determine the source of that traffic.
Traffic source will affect the longevity and conversion of the traffic. In simpler terms, it will have a huge impact on how much money the domain will make.
Link Popularity
A web site or formerly-developed domain name may receive traffic from old incoming links and directory listings. There are many online tools for checking link popularity; Marketleap.com offers one of the best tools.
The important thing to look for here is not the quantity of links, but their quality. A single link from a major web site may be worth thousands of links from smaller sites. The longevity of link traffic varies widely: a link from a news article may generate a flurry of traffic that lasts only a week, while a directory listing may continue to generate steady traffic for years. Another similar tool worth checking out is URLtrends.com.
Search Engine Listings
Search engine listings are a major source of traffic for many sites. You can guesstimate how much search engine-derived traffic a web site receives by looking at its "search engine saturation". This is an indicator of how often the domain appears in the various search engine indexes. Again, Marketleap.com offers an excellent tool for evaluating search engine saturation.
Just keep in mind that it's also important to look at how high the site is listed and how often the keyword is searched. And don't forget that search engine listings change frequently, so if this is the primary source of traffic, expect fluctuations!
Paid Fluctuations
Some traffic may be coming from PPC advertisements, exit popups or banner ads that the seller has bought. This is the shortest-lived traffic, because as soon as you buy the domain, the seller stops paying for the ads! The best way to determine traffic origin is to ask the seller about traffic sources and view the traffic logs. To ensure the logs are not modified, ask for access to the logs instead of screenshot of the statistics.
Without access to the logs, it can be difficult to determine if a domain is receiving paid traffic, but a savvy domain buyer will look for a few key pieces of evidence: do the domain statistics align with the Alexa ranking and the number of incoming links? For example, a domain that receives a couple hundred views a day, and has no Alexa ranking and very few incoming links from low-traffic sites may likely receive paid traffic. But don't discount such domains out of hand: they may be receiving typo traffic (see below for more information) or may be a seasonal domain (such as one related to the World Series).
Expired Traffic
If a domain was formerly developed, some users may continue to visit because of old links and references, or simply because they remember the domain name. This traffic may continue for years, but naturally, it decreases with time.
If it's not possible to speak with the current owner about the past development of the site, a few simple searches can help. In particular, use the hints above to examine the types of sites that link to the domain. With that information, you may be able to get some idea of the type of traffic that's visiting the domain in search of old content. After the content is removed, many of the links will be updated or removed and this traffic will eventually dwindle or expire.
Typos and Variations
Don't ignore traffic that's diverted to the domain name as a result of typos from other high traffic sites. Check out the traffic that flows to similar or mistyped domains using the tools above. Also consider traffic generated from variations of names, such as an abbreviated form of your domain name, or an acronym. If these domains experience high volumes of visitors, there is a possibility that this will translate to high traffic levels for similar sites.
Alexa can be useful tool for doing this -- it offers a feature that lists other web sites that visitors of a given domain also visit. For example, an Alexa search on the domain hotmial.com shows that many visitors to this domain also visit hotmail.com.
Find the Right Domain
Traffic is crucial for any revenue generating business on the Web. Finding the right domain with targeted traffic can take your business -- and profits -- to new heights. If you haven't quite had the time to build that web site, simply park your domains, let your parking company place relevant advertisements on the domains' pages, and sit back and monetize the traffic. Use the tools listed above to determine domain traffic and never make a wrong buying decision again.
Monday, May 08, 2006
How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site
Difficulty: Hard
Time Required: One day
Here's How:
1. If you don't already know it, learn some basic HTML. You have to do this to keep your costs down and still get what you want. Even if the site is basically laid out for you, you're going to need to know how to insert images, create hyperlinks, and do some basic text formatting. Our HTML Guide offers a free 10-week HTML class and a great collection of beginning HTML tutorials. Get over any anxiety you have about this. Just do it. You'll thank me for it later.
2. Decide on your topic. You're going to be doing product reviews and recommendations, so pick a topic that you enjoy and know something about. If you can't stay passionate about the topic, that will show, and it also won't hold your interest. Choose a narrow enough niche to be distinctive, e.g., bands from your city, left-handed guitarists, music for a certain kind of dancing, authors of a certain religion, books about arts & crafts, etc.
3. Choose your domain name. Make it keyword-rich, not clever. Think how people will find your site in the search engines. Here are some ideas (all available, by the way):
Music: BandsFromTexas.com, BandOutOfBoston.com, SouthpawGuitarists.com, ClassicPsychedelia.com, Non-Stop-Hip-Hop.com, Merengue-Music.com
Books: Mormon-Authors.com, Arts-and-Crafts-Books.com, Books-by-Stephen-King.com, ClassicBusinessBooks.com
Others: Best-Baby-Toys.com, MomsMags.com, FelliniMovies.com
4. Register your domain name. If you're not technically inclined at all, register your domain wherever you set up your hosting in step 5. Otherwise, you can save a few bucks by choosing a lower-cost provider. Not a big deal for one or two sites, but it can be for ten or twenty. I use GoDaddy, who have great domain management tools and are less than $10 a year. The least expensive I've found from a reputable source is 1&1, whose price is under $6 a year (last I checked).
5. Set up your web hosting. This is where most people get burned. For this kind of site, you do not need $10 a month web hosting! Check out Discount-Hosting.com for no-frills hosting with adequate functionality and bandwidth, for around $10 a year! If you want more features, or especially if you're planning to run multiple sites, see GeekHosting.com or Multidomain-Hosting.com.
6. Install weblog software. "Weblog, you say?" Yes. It will give your site all the structure you need, plus make it easy to quickly post new content. My pick is WordPress, which is open source (i.e., free), easy to install and use, and yet very powerful. Download it and follow their installation instructions. Turn on notifications to Weblogs.com and Blo.gs. In WordPress, this is under Options | RSS/RDF Feeds, Track-Ping-backs.
7. Make it pretty. Free templates for WordPress are available at Not That Ugly. Choose a style you like and then tweak it to suit your tastes and the theme of your site.
8. Set up categories. Most blog software allows you to create sub-categories to help organize your entries. This will help visitors narrow in even more specifically on their interests. For example, BandsFromTexas.com might have one group of categories for genre — rock, country, blues, etc. — and another for city of origin — Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, etc.
9. Sign up as an Amazon Associate. It's simple and free. Just visit Amazon and click on the Join Associates link at the bottom of the page (here's a direct link for your convenience). Your site should already have at least the basic setup done, even if you don't have any content there yet.
10. Create your blog posting bookmarks/links. There are two links that are going to be essential for you to make this easy. First is the blog posting link. In your blog software, on the posting page (see their instructions), at the bottom of the page there should be a "bookmarklet". Click on the link (and hold the mouse) and drag it up to your Links toolbar in your browser (assuming Internet Explorer), or your Favorites menu. This will allow you to blog a product with one mouse click.
11. Create your Amazon Build-A-Link bookmark/link. This will make it easy to build the link with your affiliate ID built in. Log in to Associates Central, look in the left navigation sidebar, go to Build-A-Link, and under Static Links, find Individual Items. Click and drag this onto your Links toolbar or Favorites menu.
12. Build your first link. Go to Amazon and find the product you want to review. Scroll down to Product Details and find the ASIN or ISBN. Double-click on the number itself to select it, then right-click and choose Copy. Click on your Amazon Build-A-Link link. Right-click in the search field and choose Paste. Change the selection from Served Link to You Host. Click Go. Your selection should show up. Click Get HTML. Choose the kind of link you want, select the highlighted text and copy it.
13. Blog your review. Now click on your blog posting link (Press It! by default in WordPress). If you're using WordPress, you should now see two pieces of link code in your posting form, the first one ending with "Associates Build-A-Link >< /a >". Delete through that point. The second part is a link to the product with your Amazon Associate ID built in. Now just write your product review, choose the appropriate categories for it, and hit Publish.
14. Build out your site. Before you promote your site, you want to have some substantial content there. Write several product reviews. Have at least 2-3 in each category you've created. You may also want to make a categories for articles, news, and commentary about your topic. The more content your site has, the better. And the great thing is that while you're writing all this, the search engines are getting notified automatically, assuming you turned on the notifications mentioned in step 6.
15. Promote your site. The best free way to do this is to communicate with other bloggers writing about similar topics, and to participate in online communities where your topic is discussed. See the Online Business Networking category for ideas, as well as the Internet Marketing category.
Tips:
- You have to learn some basic HTML and basic concepts about running a web site. It's just not that hard. If you have to rely on purchased software, you won't be able to get exactly what you want, you won't know what to do when things go wrong, and you'll end up spending money you don't need to. Spend the time to learn it. It will be well worth the investment.
- I slightly recommend music over books and other products, mainly because you can listen to the clips of an entire album in about 10 minutes and get a good enough feel for it (without buying it) to do a short review. If you have another topic that you're passionate about, great, but make sure you have a unique angle on the topic. People can get reviews about a lot of those consumer products anywhere. You need to give them a reason to come to your site.
- To draw repeat visitors, create a newsletter. Frequency should depend on how often you're posting new content. Start with monthly. EZezine will let you send up to 1,000 messages a month for free, with no ads. By the time you exceed that, you should be able to justify paying for the service.
- To pick up some extra pennies, sign up for Google AdSense. It probably won't generate a lot of revenue, but it's free to sign up and completely effortless to maintain.
- Set reasonable expectations for earnings. You've only invested $20. You're going to make 5% on most products. That means that you need to sell $400 worth of stuff to make back your investment. To make $20 an hour, what you write must generate $400 worth of purchases. You get credit for other purchases made while at Amazon besides just the product you linked to, so it's not as hard as it may sound. It won't make you rich, but it's not hard to be profitable, and it builds over time.
What You Need:
- A credit card with about $20 available
More How To's from your Guide To Entrepreneurs
http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/ht.htm
