Ranjit said, “I have wasted 18 years of my life in education. Had I been an illiterate I would have been a millionaire now.” I responded with some curiosity, “May I know the reason for such bitterness towards your education?”

“Who are making money right now? Real estate brokers and apartment builders. Most of them don’t have any formal education and don’t have employable skills. They enter into all sorts of deals with land owners, violate all norms, take money from buyers, build low quality houses, break promises and make millions,” he had a long list of complaints against people making money through real estate business.

I told him, “Why do you criticize others? If you have confidence, you too can start your own real estate business and become a millionaire. The truth is we do not have any entrepreneurship skills and the knowledge that they have. We ignore the facts that they are hard workers and are taking big risks in life. Risks and rewards always have direct relationship. So, instead of finding fault with people that make money, why don’t you change your attitude and start making money? Are you willing to start a real estate business?”

After a brief silence, Ranjit said with a sigh, “You are right. We do not want to admit our weakness and hate people who are making money. I am ready to change my attitude. But I don’t have knowledge or resources to start a real estate business.” I told him, “If you think you will not be able to start a real estate business, why don’t you start a cyber real estate business? You can start such a business for peanuts.”

“You mean I launch a website to buy and sell pieces of land, apartments and houses?” he asked. “No. I mean cyber real estate business. Please tell me what does a real estate developer actually do?” I said to him.

“He identifies underdeveloped piece land in good location, buys the plots, gets a great design from an architect, builds apartments, markets them, sells the property and makes money,” said Ranjit. “I will tell you about a similar method with which you can make a few thousands a month. Identify a good niche domain name, buy it, get a webhosting account, build a great looking website, promote the website, sell it and make money. Please understand that I am not suggesting that you create a product or service to sell. You are creating a website that will sell some products and services,” I said.

“Are there not many template sellers?” he asked.

I replied, “You have not understood what I mean. Getting a niche domain name, creating a concept around it, working out a unique design, and getting search engine ranks are not easy. They involve a lot of time and energy. Many webmasters would pay a good amount of money for such cyber real estate websites.”

“One can buy a domain name for Rs.300, a good hosting account for Rs.3,000, a web template for Rs.2,000 and can submit it to search engines for free. Why should someone buy the website from me for a premium?” Ranjit wanted to know.

“A good question from an ignorant mind. Most of the websites are created without any planning following the process that you just mentioned. That’s why they don’t make money. I will give you an example about a friend who made Rs 1 lakh in 3 months. XYZ is a popular content management system. Many webmasters are looking for great templates for this system. So, he did a research and registered a domain name XYZthemes.com and hosted it. He bought a great design from a template seller for his website. Then he collected details about one hundred templates for XYZ system and posted the details about them on his website. He also posted many great articles on how to use XYZ system. He promoted his website through forums, social networks and in Search Engines. Within two month he started to have 5,000 unique visitors a day. By any standards, it is a great traffic. He did not try to run any ads or sell any products through his website. By the end of the third month, he advertised in a big webmaster forum that his website is for sale to developers of XYZ templates. Within 6 hours he sold his website for $2500.”

Ranjit said, “It is inspiring. He invested only Rs.5,000. But he has worked hard for 3 months. If we include his salary for three months and a margin for profit, I would say it is really a low price. I’ll start this business today.”