{"id":7625,"date":"2022-01-01T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.websproutconsulting.com\/?p=7625"},"modified":"2023-08-03T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T02:23:14","slug":"online-business-ideas-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.websproutconsulting.com\/online-business-ideas-singapore","title":{"rendered":"Real Online Business That You Can Start In Singapore (or other countries)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I believe you land on this page to find out what are the possible online business ideas you can start this year, 2022. Before you start reading, I suggest you bookmark this page so that you can return later as there are a lot of information for you below.<\/p>\n

I decided to write and publish this post because I find that other articles and blog posts online are telling people that jobs like freelance designers and web developers are also kind of online business they can start but I disagree. I only call something as an online business when it can give you leverage – meaning that you are making money when you are not working.<\/p>\n

If you are a developer or designer providing a service, you can only make money when you are working on a project. The moment you stop working, your income stops also. Hence, I don’t consider active work like writers, designers and programmers as online business. *Unless you write and publish books or create graphics like icons as digital products to sell or create software \/ apps to sell – then these are considered as online business.<\/em><\/p>\n

The following are five different online businesses that I want to share with you so you can consider them seriously and start in Singapore (or in other countries). The most important thing is that the following business models can give you true leverage – you can make money while you are not actively working. But this does not mean it requires little or no work, please do not be mistaken! Online business is like any offline business too, it takes effort to setup the system and market it well. Once you have the system running, you can then enjoy the fruits that leverage brings you.<\/p>\n

I hope you are able to find one that suits you, good luck and hope you find my sharing useful!<\/p>\n

Special note: Some of the links below are my affiliate links where I recommend some useful resources or tools I use. You have no obligation to sign up anything below via my affiliate link if you do not wish, but if you do, I thank you for your appreciation!<\/em><\/p>\n

(1) Kindle Direct Publishing<\/h3>\n

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is created by Amazon. It allows anyone to publish books (physical and ebooks) on Amazon and Kindle store for worldwide readers to purchase. It used to be very hard to publish a physical book (you have to find a local book publisher and pay them a hefty sum) but ever since the rising of KDP, anyone can just create an account here<\/a> and upload a Microsoft word file together with the cover image, and your book (physical and ebook) will be available for purchase by anyone in the world!<\/p>\n

The reason why I like KDP is because it is free to join and Amazon will not charge me any printing costs until someone ordered my physical book online. Read on to find out how the revenue model works.<\/p>\n

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A list of KC’s kindle and physical books available for purchase in Amazon.<\/p><\/div>\n

Regarding the earning potential, it depends on how many people purchase your books and what are the price you set for your books. The potential is huge if you nail a niche that is your expertise and also has great demand. In addition, the chances of selling your book is higher if you have a book online for 300 million customers (Amazon customer base) to purchase as compared to a local bookstore.<\/p>\n

There are three methods to make money from KDP. The following is a list by Amazon where you can see how much you can make based on the price you are selling.<\/p>\n

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From the table above (this is the first method), you can see that if you want to make 70% of your book price, you need to price your kindle book between USD$2.99 to USD$9.99. For example, if your kindle book costs USD$2.99, then every purchase will give you USD$2 profit. If your kindle book price is outside of this range, then you only make 35% of the book price.<\/p>\n

As for the second method, it is for physical book, they will tell you what’s the minimum to cover the printing cost and anything you set above the minimum, you make 60%. For example, one of my book cost USD$2.15 printing cost, and I set the physical book price as USD$7.99, hence, 60% of ($7.99 – $2.15) is USD$3.50 (which is my profit every time a physical book is ordered).<\/p>\n

For the third method of earning, which is only applicable if you optin for their KDP select program. This means that you can’t sell your kindle books elsewhere but you get to earn if Amazon customers borrow your kindle book and read it. You will earn an income based on how many pages your readers have read. I like this model because it adds on to the income every month! The following is a screenshot of how many pages my books have been borrowed and read over a period of time.<\/p>\n

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There are a lot of authors making a living just from KDP and Steve Scott is one of them. He earns 5 figure a month selling kindle books on KDP<\/a>. While we are on this, let me manage your expectation here, not everyone can earn 5 figure from KDP. As in all businesses, it requires effort, persistence and some factor of luck as well. The reason why I mention Steve in this blog post is to let you know that there is huge potential selling low ticket items in today’s new economy because of the power of leveraging through Amazon and other Internet platform. It does not mean if you sell your kindle book at $2.99, you won’t be making any significant money. What if there are thousands of people buying your kindle books every month? Some popular books can have 3000 to 6000 sales per day, so there’s really no limit to KDP potential.<\/p>\n

Is KDP for beginners?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you asked me, KDP is one of the easiest business to start online for beginners. One of the key reasons is because it does not require any money to start and also, it does not require technical knowledge to set up a website. You don’t even need a website to get started with KDP.<\/p>\n

How passive is KDP business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

KDP is one of the most passive income you can get online. Once you published your books online, there is no need to support your readers by answering their questions (unlike the next business model I’m going to mention below). However, you need to have a marketing system in place to market your books so that they will sell. I will share more about marketing in my future blog post.<\/em><\/p>\n

What do you need to do well in KDP?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In order to do well in KDP, either you must write your own books, or you can get other people to read the book for you. If you are writing your own book, then you need to have good writing and proofreading skills. If you are getting other people to write for you, then you would need to have some budget to hire writers. You can check out HireWriters<\/a> to get people to write kindle books for you.<\/p>\n

How much you need to start KDP business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are writing your own book, then you do not need any money to start. Unless you want to get someone to design your book cover for you. You can go to Fiverr<\/a> (search for ‘kindle book cover design’) and get a kindle book cover designer to design a good looking cover for your book. It costs from $10 to $50 depending on the quality and addons you want.<\/p>\n

Resources to start KDP business<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. First, you need to create a KDP account here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. If you need some training on KDP, you can consider Stefan James’s course here<\/a>. Stefan is a popular Kindle author who earns 5 figure from KDP as well.<\/li>\n
  3. Otherwise, you can also consider my KDP course for beginners (who want to outsource the writing) here<\/a> if you are looking for some training on KDP business.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    (2) Online Course Instructor<\/h3>\n

    If you are not keen to make money with kindle books, but is keen to share what you know, then perhaps you can consider becoming an online course instructor. You may already know that I have been a full-time online course instructor since 2014 and at the time of this blog post, I have more than 50,000 students enrolled in my courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    As an online course instructor, what you do is to share what you know in a video. You can appear in the video or you can just show the PowerPoint slides or your computer screen in the video (commonly known as screen-cast). For me, 99% of my videos are screen-cast, I don’t appear in my online courses. Instead I only speak and show my students my computer screen.<\/p>\n

    Udemy.com is definitely the first place to go to if you are keen to start as an online instructor because they have 24 million students looking to learn new topics every day. You can click here to see some of the latest statistics from Udemy<\/a>. Ever since I started as an online instructor with Udemy, I rarely promote my own online courses because Udemy has always helped me promote my courses. This is the main reason why I decided to work with Udemy from the beginning.<\/p>\n

    Based on my experience, Udemy is a perfect place for you if you are teaching topics related to the IT \/ Technology, business \/ marketing, home business and personal development<\/strong>. I have been teaching website creation and affiliate marketing on Udemy and the results are very encouraging as I have thousands of new students every month without me doing any marketing. The following is a summary of my stats on Udemy as of the time of this blog post:<\/p>\n

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    I’m very glad to have most of my students coming from overseas instead of my country, Singapore because I know that the main reason for me teaching online is to reach out to more people in other countries!<\/p>\n

    Now, enough of my story. Let me share with you what are the three revenue models Udemy runs. Once your course gets approved by Udemy, I strongly suggest that you optin to their marketing and promotion program – where they will use smart pricing tactics to sell your course by giving discounts.<\/p>\n

    The first revenue model<\/strong> is when you sell your own courses (by giving discount codes to your contacts or customers), you will receive 97% of the fee. For example, my course costs USD$200 and I can create a discount code that gives 50% off. If my friend sign up my course using this discount code, Udemy will pay me 97% of USD$100, which is USD$97.<\/p>\n

    The second revenue model<\/strong> is when your course is sold by Udemy website, then you will receive 50% of the course fee. For example, if Udemy sells your course for USD$50 to a student, then you will receive USD$25.<\/p>\n

    The third revenue model<\/strong> is when an Udemy affiliate sells your course, you will receive 25% of the course fee. For example, if an affiliate sells your course for USD$40, you will receive USD$10.<\/p>\n

    You can view the latest revenue share structure on Udemy page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Udemy has a comprehensive page to share with you what are the audio and video recording equipment that they recommend. You can find the recommended list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    For me, as I don’t appear in the video, I don’t need any video equipment. All I need for my online courses are:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Screencast-o-matic.com<\/a> (this is the software I use to record my presentation slides and also my computer screen)<\/li>\n
    2. Blue yeti microphone<\/a> (a professional audio recording equipment)<\/li>\n
    3. Audacity<\/a> (a software to edit recorded sound, I use it mainly to remove background noise)<\/li>\n
    4. Powerpoint or any presentation software (I use powerpoint mainly)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Besides Udemy, there is also another website called Skillshare<\/a> where you can upload your courses as well. Although skillshare is not as popular as Udemy, but it is still another stream of income from your online courses. In addition, once you have an online course, it is easy to duplicate it onto other platforms.<\/p>\n

      If you ever wonder what topic can you teach online, you can check out a short video I have recorded sometime ago to give you some ideas:<\/p>\n