In the midst of the economic crisis, credit is hard to come by, consumer spending is down and unemployment is increasing almost as fast as the national debt.  Despite this, I’m not going to use my background in economics do an in depth analysis of how screwed we all are.  It’s too depressing.

What I am going to do is explain why Internet Entrepreneurship is a great way to earn a little extra cash now and shore up your financial future.  Even the worst recessions are only temporary, and regardless of how bad the economy gets the American Dream is still real in an era of globalization.  It might just take a little more hard work now than it would have before everything happened.

5. The Internet is Growing

As the global population continues to grow and countries continue to develop, the number of Internet users will continue to grow.  The great thing about the web is that it really does give you instant access to the entire globe.  Within 24 hours of this website going online, a blog post I wrote about viral advertising hit the front page of Digg.com drawing over 10,000 visitors from over 100 countries.  A global consumer audience makes for a pretty diversified investment.

4. Start up Costs are Low

When credit is hard to come by, it’s tough to put together enough capital to start a business.  The web however boasts surprisingly low start up costs.  When Kevin Rose started Digg.com, he only needed $1200 for a domain name, $99 for hosting, and $1000 dollars so he could pay a freelance web developer $12 an hour to put everything together.  The initial investment was enough to build a working website with a viable business model, and Investors soon showed up with millions in capital, most of which Rose and the Digg team turned down because they simply didn’t need it.

The thing is, Rose could have done it for even cheaper.  If you do the web developing yourself and buy a cheap domain name, projects can be put together for extremely small amounts of money.

3. You Will Learn Valuable New Skills

If you have the money to pay a programmer, great.  If you don’t, you can always learn the basics because the information is already available on the web.  Since I started my web company as a hobby/experiment I have taught myself the workings of social media, online marketing, and how to use various content management systems.  I have learned about Adsense, Adwords, and Miva.  I have met great contacts and found myself talking to suprisingly influential and powerful people on the web.  I have learned that with Wordpress and a free template, it takes about 4 seconds to make a great looking website.  (Check out this awesome blog I set up for a client).

The thing is, even if you totally fail as an Internet Entrepreneur, you are going to learn valuable skills.  At the very least, these skills will help you stand out from the pack in a competitive job market, and they will probably increase your pay grade if you ever have to “work as a slave for somebody else” ever again.

2. You are Instantly Globalized

I want to take another minute to talk about globalization.  Selling stuff in the US not going so well?  Target another market.  With the web, you can run a business selling stuff anywhere in the world.  Use Google, find a supplier, and set up shop overseas.  If you are running a content based site, find a way to translate your content and then distribute it to a new market.  There is no reason to hate multinational corporations because it is so easy to be one yourself.

1. You Don’t Need to Have Great Ideas

My last and most important point is just how easy being an Internet Entrepreneur can be.  It is true that even if I manage to inspire you into becoming an e-entrepreneur, its doubtful that you are going to go and create the next Digg or the next Google.  (Although if you do, sending me a few million is a great way to say thanks.  In fact, you can send me money even if you don’t make a few million.)  The thing is, some pretty stupid (maybe I should call it brilliant in simplicity) websites drive huge amounts of traffic and make decent money off of advertising.

Considering that it is possible to build a high traffic website containing pictures of pets with captions powered entirely by user generated content (icanhascheezburger makes money and the owners don’t even have to do anything), I feel that there is plenty of opportunity on the web.  It’s pointless to whine and moan about a recession when creating new and innovative products to change outlook and jump start consumer spending is the only way to get out of one.  The Internet is still in its infancy and it isn’t going to stop growing any time soon.  I say get out there and make something of a bad situation.

If you have any questions about me or what I do, never hesitate to contact me.