There’s a lot of buzz this week surrounding Facebook’s Initial Public Offering, and for good reason. Facebook has become another in a growing list of companies that are making millionaires out of every day people who happened to be there in the beginning. Pay attention because there are more doors opening daily. You just have to know where to look.
I’ve spent years helping start-ups, not only with web design, but with planning and consulting. Over the years, I’ve learned several ways to get in early on start-ups like Facebook and I have ownership in a lot of companies. Below is some of what I’ve put into practice.
Earn Shares Socially
One of the really easy ways to get in on the ground floor is to earn shares in a company by way of social media promotion. My busy schedule and lack of time has kept me from making one of my ideas a reality, but thankfully, someone else has done it instead. The idea was to create a site that brings new start-ups together with social marketers to generate buzz for the start-up in exchange for stake in the company that the social marketers would split. Wahooly is trying to do just that. This week, they opened up in beta to 20,000 users and 4 start-ups, promising to pair them up in the relationship I envisioned. This will be one to watch for sure.
Zurker offers what I wish Facebook or Twitter had in the early years. Basically, they’re doing for themselves what Wahooly offers to do, just without the middle man. Zurker is a start-up social network that aims to compete directly with Facebook for your updates and daily loyalty. In an effort to grow their user base virally, they’re offering vShares for referrals. Unlike actual stock shares or options, vShares are a virtual representation of your right to equity in the company if they ever get big enough. You have to have a little faith here, but the payout may be worth it.
Become An Owner In A Product
When you go offline and walk into a store, have you ever wondered who invented the product you just bought? One of my favorite new companies in recent years is Quirky. It’s a platform for inventors, thinkers, and designers to see their ideas and designs come to life in the form of real-world products. Quirky guides the invention process all the way through to a completed product that they then get on the shelves of big box stores like Target and Bed Bath & Beyond. Right now, those stores and others have products on the shelves that I’m getting checks for about every month. If you are creative, check it out but like other ways to earn, be ready to wait a while for that first notable check.
Other Ways To Earn
If you’re in a position to do it, consider taking shares instead of (or as part of) payment for goods and services. Web developers, printers, artists, and anyone who can help growing (and sometimes broke) start-ups save a few bucks can often walk away with shares that have the potential for millions of dollars down the road.
This is better when you really believe in the company and its future, but can be a good idea even if you don’t. A great example is David Choe, the graffiti artist who could be worth $200 million when Facebooks IPO hits. In 2005, when Facebook was still limited to students and relatively a small player, Choe came in to create art and opted for a small stake in the company rather than payment. Even though he reportedly didn’t think much of the Facebook concept, he’s going to reap substantial rewards from its success.
Many companies will pay (in options, often) for your expertise as well. If you can call yourself an expert in anything, leverage your unique experience and knowledge and offer to consult for a related company in exchange for shares or options. The more you help, the more your shares may be worth in the end and everyone wins.
The Waiting Game
Taking ownership in a product or start-up will not make anyone rich over night. David Choe, mentioned above, was once homeless between his work for Facebook and the great position he’s in today. Employees of Google spent years working hard before becoming IPO millionaires. If you need the money now, do things that will earn you money, but if you opt for shares in a company, be prepared to wait for years before your ship comes in.
Conclusions
Even the busiest of people end up with free time spent chatting or playing games on Facebook. If you had an free hour every day (after work and family, of course), would you give it up for a small chance that it could turn into a large profit one day? If so, try some of the things above and report back in a few years.
Are you doing any of this already or is there anything I missed? I’d love to hear your input in the comments below.
Full disclosure: I make money on every Pivot Power sold. That said, I also truly believe in this product. Just read the review and see why.
At some point, people began using more and more gadgets and electronics, requiring more and more plugs. From cell phones to portable game systems, many of these plugs come in awkwardly shaped bricks that take up a lot of space in a wall outlet or power strip. That’s why Quirky produced Pivot Power, the brain child of designer and programmer, Jake Zien.
A Great Idea
In 2006, Jake came up with the idea for Pivot Power as a project for his pre-college program at the Rhode Island School of Design. One can only hope he received a high grade for the project. The problem is pretty simple to grasp: By time you’ve plugged in three or four brick style power adapters in any normal straight power strip, you’ve covered up the remaining, unused outlets. The solution, as Jake saw it, was to have a power strip that could bend at each socket to allow a little more room. Fast forward to about a year ago. The same concept is very well received by Quirky users, who then helped it become a product. I loved the idea so much that I became one of more than 855 people who helped bring it to life and then I bought two of them as soon as they went on pre-sale.
Put To The Test
Anyone wondering how much of a problem the “brick” power adapters can be should refer to my home office. I have these things all over the place from gadgets I review as well as my desktop speakers, cameras, wireless devices, cable modem, etc. Coming up with six bulky adapters to test the Pivot Power didn’t even require getting up from my chair.
The power adapters I used were all bricks of varying sizes and they all fit nicely in my Pivot Power. At one end, the power button is illuminated around its edge by a blue light to let me know that the power strip is turned on. The illumination was just the topping on a very elegant design. A push of the power button turns off the light and the whole power strip. The Pivot Power also has a little weight to it. This is important because the straight power strip at my office is constantly rolling onto its side. This weight, along with the ability to bend it into an S or U shape will keep the Pivot Power sitting flat as it should be.
The Pivot Power won me over from all angles. It looks good. It feels like it will last. The concept makes it rise above all other power strips I’ve used. I really couldn’t find a negative thing to say about it. Priced at $29.99 on Quirky’s web site, it’s definitely priced higher than most power strips. If you don’t have the problem this solves, $30 is a bit much for a power strip, but if you do, it’s worth every cent.
I have written in the past about a company called Quirky where product ideas are submitted by people like you and me, developed by people like you and me, and then sold to people like you and me. I love Quirky and I’m a fairly regular contributor (and earner). In fact, I returned to my office today to find an unexpected package from the company. I love surprises.
Quirky Wrapster
Wrapster is a single piece of durable plastic that is uniquely designed to help you wrap up your ear bud headphones. In the video further down the page, I show how it works.
Retailing for $6.50, it’s a cheap way to keep your headphones from getting tangled up. It also boasts the ability to use it as an iPhone stand as well, but I couldn’t get it to hold my iPhone 4 up. Despite being unable to use it as a stand, I enjoyed it for the hour I owned it until my wife claimed it as her own.
Quirky Cordies
One of Quirky’s earlier products has been revamped and is shipping again. Cordies, coming in at $12.99 keeps all your cords and cables from falling off the back of your desk.
I showed this one in the video below as well and I was pretty impressed with how well it works. Cordies has a little weight to it to keep it on your desk and in my testing, it held up to some weight on the other end trying to pull the cable down.
Video Demonstrations
Both of the items described above are easy to talk about, but I thought it would be better to just show you how they work. Rather then using the company’s videos, I decided to make my own and put them to a real test. Other than the Wrapster’s bonus feature as an iPhone stand not working out for me, everything worked better than I expected. I also talk about the company as a whole and the awesome shirt they sent me, which I wore immediately.
About Quirky
For those unaware, Quirky is a site that takes ideas from anyone willing to submit them and presents them to the global community via their web site for evaluation. Once ideas have been evaluated by the community and by Quirky staff, one or more are selected to go through the development process. This process includes several smaller submission/evaluation rounds to flesh out things like the industrial design, colors, name, etc. Quirky also asks the community to participate in surveys and other ways to help define the end product. Eventually, a product is presented for pre-sales commitments and if enough sell, it goes into production and ships to buyers and stores.
The beautiful part is how people make money on the site. People make money by earning “influence” in a product. That influence translates into a percentage of the sale price of each unit sold for the item the influence is earned on. As an example, I have some influence in Wrapster, so I earn a wee tiny amount of money on each and every Wrapster sold. It’s very tiny, but 87,000+ Wrapsters later, it’s adding up nicely. The most influence is given to those who present the ideas and the least to those who just vote or help guide the development, but it all earns. I’ve only earned real money little bits at a time with the voting and guiding, but have made a few hundred dollars so far. Others have made thousands. Check it out for yourself if you haven’t yet.
With my own iPad on its way to me soon, I’ve been looking at accessories I can pair it with for the perfect experience. The video capabilities present me with a need for a good stand to put the iPad on while watching a TV show or movie, but most of the stands on the Internet are pretty lifeless and they’re all pretty similar in features. Then a stand found me.
UPDATE: This stand now has a web site and will be taking pre-orders in the near future : Perfect iPad Stand
Yeah… The bottom part is a bowl meant to eat food from. I’ve posted a couple times about Quirky, a site that takes product ideas through a community-driven process that refines the idea into a product, logo and all. This is where a site member, Jeff Tromp entered his idea for the perfect iPad stand. Just watch the video to see how it works.
A Better iPad Stand
What will make this iPad stand better than everything currently on the market? The thing that stands out the most to me is the full range of motion it provides. Jeff makes some great points in his video, showing how Apple’s stand sticks you with portrait positioning and walks away. His racing game demonstration in the video above (and additional racing-specific demo) show his iPad stand going beyond portrait or landscape, turning the iPad, itself, into the steering wheel for the game. From what I’ve seen, it really seems to provide the freedom that all the existing stands are lacking.
The amazing part about this new (hopefully) soon-to-be-product is that people are already reviewing it and consumers are lining up to buy one. Across the globe, a site in Korea posted a favorable opinion (translated) and views on his YouTube demo just keep going up. A lot of his video traffic is viral and that says a lot.
Make it happen (and make some money)
The two best things about Quirky are that you can help guide the development of a product and that you can make money doing it. This is no exception. Jeff’s Perfect iPad Stand is in the running to be chosen as Quirky’s Product 46 and I think it will win, too. Just click that link and create a free account at Quirky to vote for Jeff’s idea. If it wins, your vote will earn you a little piece of every single sale. Seriously. Not only can you say you helped it become a product, but when it’s ready for sale, you can wake up in the morning and see earnings from its sales. I know this because I’m currently earning on 21 products at Quirky and the highest earner for me is their Cloak iPad case.
