Dear readers

With Christmas just around the corner, I would like to wish all of you a blessed Christmas and a very happy and prosperous 2007 ahead !

Enjoy the holiday season and continue to stay tune to Think Rich, Grow Rich.

See you all soon !



Cheers
Jun Yuan

I would like to share with you some interesting information.

The statistics on the number of Internet users today are as follows (Updated on 27 Nov 2006, from www.internetworldstats.com) :



From the above table, you can see that the world now has over 1 BILLION Internet users, and this figure is still increasing.

What does this mean ? This means that your Internet business can reach out to over 1 billion potential customers around the world ! That’s tonnes more than the amount of people you can reach in a traditional business, where you can only reach out to people within your own country. Unlike traditional businesses, your Internet business can operate round the clock. This means you can even make money when you are sleeping, or relaxing outside with your friends and family members !

How much can we earn ?

Let’s do a simple calculation. Imagine you set yourself a target of making JUST $1 from every person on the Internet every month. How much can you possibly make every month on the Internet ? OVER $1 BILLION DOLLARS ! (I’m not lying about this – the stats above say everything).

Ok. I know that it is impossible to get every person on the Internet to purchase from you, as each of us has different interests. But, lets think of it this way – if we aim to get JUST 5% of the WHOLE Internet population to make purchase from you every month, and you get to earn $1 for every purchase. How much will you be able to earn every month ? Let me take out my calculator and do the calculations :

5% out of 1,076,203,987 Internet users – that will be about 53,810,199 Internet users purchasing from your web per month.

With that, you can potentially make $53 million per month !

You may be asking me if it is possible to have such high volume of business. My answer is this – “YES ! IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE !”

Does this excite you ? It certainly does excite me ! So let’s get started !

What can I sell on the Internet ?

The first thing you probably ask yourself is “What can I sell on the Internet ?” Well, you can sell almost ANYTHING on the Internet – from books, clothing, DVDs, electronic products (whole range of products such as computers, hi-fi set, laptops, mobile phones, mp3 & mp4 players, television), food, furniture, magazines, music CDs, recipes, stationeries, watches, and many more. You can sell practically ANYTHING you have in mind on the Internet.

Some of you may tell me this - “I have cracked my brains out to think of what I can possibly sell but I cannot think of anything !!”

Don’t be frustrated. Because on the Internet, you do not necessary have to sell physical products. You can also sell non-physical products such as ideas that you have in your head.

What do I mean by this ? This simply means that you can sell your knowledge and experience – some of you may be experts in building a Personal Computer from scratch. You can write an e-book on “Step-by-Steps to Setting up a Personal Computer”. Some of you may be very good in fitness, and you realise that there is a huge demand for books on how to keep fit in this busy society of ours. You can write an e-book to teach people how to exercise and keep yourself fit in say, 10 minutes a day ? (I am sure everybody will have at least 10 minutes of free time in a day.) You may be an expert in vehicle maintenance. You can write an e-book about 101 steps to taking care of your vehicle. The list goes on and on and on… The most amazing thing about selling an idea is that it is TOTALLY FREE ! You need NOT pay for your own ideas. And the best thing about it is that you can get paid for your ideas ! Simply by penning them down into an e-book and sell them online. BINGO ! Money will start coming in before you even know it !

Even if you do not have any business ideas, don’t worry. You can always look to improvise someone else’s ideas and turn them into yours, and start making money on the improvised idea. In my next posting, I’ll be sharing with you real-life stories on how people improvise someone else’s idea and turn them into their own business.

That’s all for now. Please look out for my next posting !

Cheers
Jun Yuan

I just read an article in “The New Paper” (“The New Paper” is a Singapore newspaper) about a lady who, started off with less than US$10 of capital, is now making US$2.5 million. I would like to share this article with all of you :

3-D Babe Turns $15 (US$10) into $4M (US$2.5million) – by Eugene Wee, December 11, 2006

WEARING a spaghetti-strap top, with her flowing hair tied in a ponytail, Anshe Chung looks more like a model rather than a real estate mogul.

A millionaire who started with a capital of less than US$10 ($15), she develops properties that she either sells or rents to clients all over the world.

Her latest development is called Plush Market, a high-tech multi-purpose building situated next to a beach.

During a press tour, she reveals: 'This will become an office and meeting tower for company and citizen meetings, press conferences, and demonstrations.'

Earlier, Anshe, who has appeared on the cover of BusinessWeek magazine, hosted a press conference to announce that her business had made her her first million.

You might think that making US$1 million dealing in real estate is no big deal, but Anshe's case is special - she's not a real person. She exists only in the virtual world of Second Life, a 3-D online computer game environment where people from all over the globe join to socialise, hang out and do business. The properties she develops are virtual as well.

But the money she makes for her creator, China-born teacher Ailin Graef, is very real. The Financial Times estimates that her virtual business generates US$2.5 m ($4m) in real-world annual revenues.

Mrs Graef was born in Hubei, China, but moved to Germany in the mid-1990s with her husband, Guntram, to teach languages.

She started creating her digital empire when she joined the Second Life world in 2004 as Anshe Chung, after paying US$9.95 as a sign-up fee.

At first, the avid player of online games was happy to just wander the virtual world making friends.

TUTORING PLAYERS

Soon, she started to earn extra cash by 'tutoring' novice Second Life players in the finer points of virtual living.

She also put her computer skills to work by creating animation programmes that allow avatars - the 3-D characters in the virtual world - to do special movements like dance or stand on their heads.

Then, she set up a virtual shop and sold these animations to others for Linden Dollars (L$), the currency of Second Life. Linden Dollars are convertible to US dollars at the rate of about L$270 to US$1.

She soon expanded her creations to include custom-designed virtual buildings, landscapes and even entire islands.

Mrs Graef, who hosted a press conference inside a virtual Chinese teahouse in Second Life, said: 'I must admit that at first, I thought it was just an interesting experiment with a small community. At some stage, something special happened...Things became very real here - friendships, doing things together with others, 'living' here and, well, doing business.'

The first sign that her small business could become a big one was when she was not only able to send part of her earnings to her parents in China, but also have enough left over to help support a poor boy in the Philippines, whom she met through a church organisation.

That was when she said she realised that her entrepreneurial activities in the virtual world could reap her real-world profits.

So, together with her husband, she set up Anshe Chung Studios, a real-life design company that buys virtual real estate in Second Life, then builds houses, offices, recreational facilities on them before renting or selling them to others in the virtual world.

Business became so brisk that she opened a branch office in Wuhan, China, earlier this year. Today, her company has 25 employees, a number she hopes will double in the near future.

Mrs Graef declined to reveal the identities of her virtual real estate clients, but said they included individuals, academic institutions and corporations.

'Last night we rented 12 (plots) to a major TV station,' she said. 'We also have real-life billionaires as clients who live on our lands.' At last count, she reckons her avatar owns about 550 'regions', or plots of virtual land, in the Second Life world.

NO LAVISH LIFESTYLE

While her business has made her a millionaire, she said that she is not exactly enjoying an extravagant lifestyle because she re-invests all her money into the business.

Her company also plans to sponsor non-profit organisations that hold events in the Second Life world. 'At the moment, the focus is more on Second Life and to support the non-profit groups there.'

She also stresses that the millionaire in question isn't her, but Anshe, explaining that she prefers to keep her real-world life separate from the activities of her virtual alter ego.

And Anshe clarified this during the press conference too, saying: 'All the assets are inside Second Life. It is not money that my creator has put in her bank account.'

But when pressed, Anshe admitted if she were to liquidate all her virtual assets, Mrs Graef would be an instant millionaire.

---

Toyota, adidas set up virtual shops

SECOND Life started in 2003 as a 3-D virtual world for gamers to 'hang out'. But since then, it has turned into a bustling community of over 1.8 million 'residents' with a bona fide economy and currency of its own.

Apart from property, players in Second Life buy and sell items like virtual clothes, furniture, gadgets and musical instruments, with an estimated US$500,000 changing hands daily.

Global news agency Reuters even has a website dedicated to Second Life, with a reporter living in and 'reporting' from the virtual world.

The website also features a chart that monitors the commerce going on and shows the latest exchange rate between Linden Dollars and the US dollar.

The popularity of this online game has drawn some of the world's biggest companies to set up shop in the virtual world.

For example, car maker Toyota, computer seller Dell, and sports apparel company Adidas have virtual outlets in Second Life.
Many residents also make use of the Second Life world for educational purposes.

So a professor in Toronto and students in Boston can log into Second Life and meet their virtual selves to conduct lessons.

Ms Catherine Smith, a spokesman at Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based firm that created Second Life, said that the number of things you can do in the virtual world could make it more than just a game in the future.


Lessons learnt from article

The article above proved to us that it is indeed possible for anyone of us to become millionaires.

Mrs Graef only invested US$10, and she is now a millionaire. This proves only one thing – you need not spend lots of money upfront to start up your own business, and become a millionaire. If she can, so can any one of us reading this article I’ve posted.

Best Wishes
Jun Yuan

After uploading my “Welcome Message” post on 3 December, I have been trying to make some changes to the blog layout so that you’ll be able to navigate around the blog easily.

For those of you who have been waiting for my blog to be up for quite sometime, I apologise for the delay. This is the first time I’m creating a blog, so there are lots of skills I need to pick up along the way when creating it. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my girlfriend for all her wonderful input and support to make this blog an even better one for all you readers.

Postings

I will be posting articles either once or twice every week. As the title of the blog “Think Rich, Grow Rich” suggests, I will be writing about how to change our mindset to think like millionaires (“Think Rich” part), and also about the different ways how we can make money on the Internet (“Grow Rich” part).

To get updated on the latest postings and events happening at “Think Rich, Grow Rich”, please provide me with your name and email address under the column “Receive Instant Notification on Updates”. Not to worry. Your contact details will remain private and confidential and you’ll only be receiving emails from me.

Active participation

In order to fully benefit from the articles I have posted, I would like to invite all of you to actively participate in my blog – especially on questions I will be bringing up for discussion. Alternatively, if you have any comments on any of the articles I have posted, you can bring them up for discussion. You can make use of the comments section (which can be found after every article), or my tagboard for discussion purposes. Engaging in discussions is one very good way to learn from each other.

Finally, if you have any general comments or suggestion (such as how to improve the layout of my blog, etc), feel free to drop me an email at ljunyuan@msn.com, or leave a message at my tagboard (don’t forget to leave your contact information so I can get in touch with you). I will DEFINITELY respond to your messages.


Articles to share ?

Last but not least, if you have come across any interesting articles and would like to share with everybody here at “Think Rich, Grow Rich”, send them, along with your name and email address, to me at ljunyuan@msn.com. I will review and post your article on my blog, along with your name (to credit you for the contributions).


I hope you’ll enjoy your stay at “Think Rich, Grow Rich”. Please bookmark this site (CTRL + D) and visit it regularly as I will constantly be uploading mouth-watering articles.

Talk to you soon ! =)

Best Wishes
Jun Yuan

First and foremost, I want to thank you for visiting my blog.

Personal Introduction

Before I start, let me first introduce myself. I’m Jun Yuan (you can call me JY for short) and I am born and bred in Singapore. I have graduated from the University of London in Computing and Information System with a First Class Honours degree in 2005 and currently working as an executive.

I have huge interests in developing websites and conducting IT training (I have done IT training on web design and news production to Primary and Secondary school students, as well as NITLP (National IT Literacy Programmes – a programme initiated by the Singapore government for adults / senior citizens with very little or no computing experience to learn how to surf the Internet, as well as to send and receive emails) from 2003 – 2004 while doing my degree part-time and have learnt a lot during those 2 years, especially in the area of managing interpersonal relationships and speaking in front of a large number of audiences. Currently, I have 2 personal webpages – 1 containing more information about myself (including my resume, projects done in school and as a freelance programmer, etc.), and the other one dedicated to my girlfriend and I.

This is the first time I’m creating a blog, so pardon me if it is not up to standard. If you have any tips on how I can improve it, please let me know. I’ll be most happy to learn from you.

Personal Experience on Money Making

I know the first question you might be thinking of asking me is “Junyuan, you’re an IT graduate. What knowledge do you have on money making ?”

Let me share with you my story – Right after I graduated, I harboured same thoughts as many fresh graduates – to find a stable and good paying job. I do not have other money making intentions. My only source of income will be from my monthly salary.

My perception on money making remained as such until I started reading a book on how one can be a self-made millionaire. (I will share with you more on what I have learnt from this book in my next postings.) The book shared with me something which I want to share with all of you – it IS possible to make money from the Internet, and it IS possible to do so without any upfront costs.

Interesting, isn’t it ? Yes ! I felt it was truly amazing ! I dived right in to more research online and read even more books on Internet marketing, spending my free time on them, and applying the different money making techniques I’ve learnt. I will share with you my experiences as well.

Blog contents

I would like to share with you the tips and tricks on how we can make money on the Internet. It is possible to make money on the Internet provided we have applied the right skills.

Just for your information, I am still learning (via trial and error and learning from people’s past experiences) and trying to uncover the secrets to making money online. I sincerely would like to welcome you to join me in my money making journey. I am sure the whole process will be a very meaningful and enriching one.

This blog is free for all to come and share your experiences and thoughts about online money making. If you have any posts that would like me to upload, please email them to me at ljunyuan@msn.com. I’ll be happy to put them here for everyone’s reading. (I’ll definitely credit the author for his / her post.)

Yours Sincerely
Jun Yuan