75,000.
There are 75,000 small businesses earning recurring revenue each month thanks to a device that fits into the palm of your hand.
This month the iPhone App Store surpassed 75,000 apps, and it’s a terrific example for how you can become rich and famous using the Web.
Here’s how to leverage your social media platform to jump start a business:
1. Identify a Market Need
This isn’t complicated. Sit down at your desk and start asking your friends what they did last night, or hop over to Google Trends for ideas and inspiration. The key is to write down 5 problems people have which they would pay to solve.
2. Create a Solution Based on an Existing Product
How many people would be leaving their jobs at Sun Microsystems for careers as entrepreneurs without the App Store (at least one less anyway, thanks to the guy who made over $800,000 from a single app).
You don’t need to use an iPhone to deploy this strategy though.
Think about any cool product people are rushing out to buy. If you’re a web designer or blogger, check out one money strategy here. If you understand how to use WordPress (free publishing tool), Twitter (free microblog), know the fundamentals of SEO/SEM, and can explain and present the process to small businesses, you’re in business.
The tools are free, but the knowledge required to solve a market need holds real value.
3. Scale Your Product – See Revenues Grow
Which amount of money would you rather have, $0.99 x 100,000, or $1,000 x 80? The point is that sometimes high volume is more effective than high price, but only if you can find sufficient volume. My advice is to take advantage of a concept ‘Freemium’ outlined by Chris Anderson in his book Free: The Future of a Radical Price (amazon link).
Freemium is the idea that you give away a standard version of a product free. This way you can share a product with an exponentially larger audience than if you charged even a cent for it (yes, one penny is a tremendous mental barrier, precisely because it requires people to speak). However, you’re also educating people about the way they can use the product risk free, and — if your product marketed intelligently — entice them to upgrade to the premium, paid version.
Thus the free version is the sales brochure for the paid version (and it doesn’t really cost you anything to give away all that intellectual capital free, especially since you don’t give away the whole store up front).
Need help marketing your idea using the power of Freemium? Just Ask.